Lost Perspective 5: READ MY MIND
by Bellegeste
Summary: READ MY MIND is the sequel to POST MORTEM, but can equally be read as a single SSHG story. Snape and Hermione are reunited after two years apart. How has her time in Africa changed her? Will they now resolve their ethical dilemma...
1. Hermione : Snape

**LOST PERSPECTIVE 5**

**READ MY MIND**

**By Bellegeste**

**Author's note: READ MY MIND is the sequel to POST MORTEM. It is set partly in December 1998, (by which time Harry, Hermione and co have left school and been working for five months) and partly in November 1996 (following on immediately from Hermione's abrupt departure from Snape's cottage).**

**The aim of the story is to take the SS/HG relationship (?) to some sort of conclusion…**

**Through a series of conversations (SS/HG, HP/HG, SS/AD, HG/RL, SS/DM, SS/HP/HG …) I am also examining the different persona we present to different people, and how events can be variously interpreted; how we say one thing while we are thinking another and meaning quite the opposite…**

**Chapter 1 :****HERMIONE : SNAPE**

**December 1998**

Diagon Alley

The young woman strolled down Diagon Alley, her feet kicking through the thick snow with the kind of playful delight that greets the first onset of real winter. Either that or she hadn't seen snow for a long time. It was early afternoon in the Alley, but already the Christmas lights were twinkling, and the festively decorated shops beckoned brightly, cheerful and inviting, brimming with warmth, peace on earth and seasonal goodwill to all wizards.

Outside _Ollivander's_ she stopped, adjusting her grip on the draw-cord handles of several glossy carrier bags, flexing chilled fingers inside soft leather gloves. Catching her reflection, she couldn't help checking herself over, more in disbelief than vanity. This cloak had been a good buy, she decided, twisting and craning slightly to see the back view. There was something about the hang and swing of it that made her look…not glamorous, not even beautiful, that would be stretching it, but, well, quite _grown up_. After so many months of feeling drab and dusty, hot, sticky and wilted, the crisp air was refreshing; she was invigorated. For a moment she tilted her head back, allowing the gently falling snow to brush her face and, mischievously, caught a snowflake on the tip of her tongue.

_Oh, it was good to be back in England, back in London, back in Diagon Alley…_

The hood of the fur-lined cloak slipped, revealing a weight of golden-brown hair, and a halo of the kind of highlights you only get by magic or from weeks spent outside in the sunshine. She was not especially attractive - not conventionally pretty - but there was a firm, determined look about her features, and an air of quiet self-assurance that was enough to turn heads. And, amidst the pale, sun-starved, hearth-hugging, winter shoppers she stood out, tanned and glowing like a Galleon in a stream of silver Sickles.

As she passed _Flourish and Blotts_, her pace checked, the force of the books exerting their sage, siren pull, drawing her towards the tantalisingly piled, holly-trimmed display of '_Sparkling Spells for a Magical Christmas'_.

Hermione Granger did not need any more books. Where would she keep them? The bookcases in her old room at her parents' house were already double-stacked, and so full that any new addition had to negotiate for shelf space. She couldn't bear to use a _Shrinking Spell_ purely for the sake of storage - that would be sacrilege! And, she knew only too well, her parents had earmarked that shelving for their combined collections of 'Dentistry Digest' and 'Molar Monthly' magazines, their Dental College alumni yearbooks and sequentially labelled box-files of the trade journals which they speed read over the breakfast table, skimming for the latest developments in tooth technology, before filing them for future reference.

They were just waiting for Hermione to get a place of her own.

And she would. Definitely she would, she thought - once the job had settled down. It had all been so hectic - everything had happened in such a rush. She'd hardly had a chance to luxuriate in her outstanding success in her NEWTs when three recruitment owls (the first of many) had swooped silently down, each bearing an enticing employment proposal. First there was an open scholarship to the Cadwallader-Clagg Institute of Advanced Magic, with a view to a Junior Research Fellowship on graduation - it was like a dream come true. What more could she possibly want? Next, there was an unconditional offer of a place on the Ministry's fast-track Auror Training Scheme (with guaranteed Ministerial fringe benefits and immediate full pension entitlement) - she thought she'd 'pass' on that one. Finally, there had been a letter from the Director of the charitable foundation, Wizard-Aid, politely requesting that Hermione join him for a chat over a light lunch.

Far from finding it a tough decision, far from wanting to wait and consider her options, Hermione had known instantly what her choice would be. She knew exactly what she had to do, and why. She had to get as far away as possible from Hogwarts…

The moment Hermione paused outside _Flourish and Blotts_, she sensed she was a lost cause - that the lure of learning had yet again seduced her. She could feel the literary undertow sucking at the melting snow beneath her feet, undermining her resolve to walk on by. Already she found herself drifting towards the door, swept along by her insatiable love of books. Some things didn't change. She'd just pop in for a quick look around…

Inside, the shop had that comfortable, frowsy, slightly yellowing smell of parchment, ink and papery promise. The very air was laden with erudition - merely standing there, Hermione felt she was absorbing information, breathing in a mellow wisdom.

She was at home in a bookshop. Whereas in a fashion boutique she felt out of place, gauche and uncertain, with the impression that smart clothes were somehow wasted on her, amongst the books she was in her element, confident, decisive; amongst the stacked maze of volumes her sixth sense came into play and she navigated the unmarked shelves instinctively. Today she was merely browsing.

In _Flourish and Blotts _there was little discernible order in the arrangement of the books. Hermione revelled in its old-fashioned, hap-hazard system of cataloguing - if indeed it followed any system at all - which lulled the unwary customer into a false sense of shambles. The assistants, Hermione had long ago discovered, could, if required to do so, pinpoint any title, author or topic in seconds. There was no need for colour-coding, bar-coding, price-coding or indexing by subject-matter or the writer's name. At a single wave of a wand the requested volume would slide from the shelf and materialise at your fingertips, or else shoot across the shop to join your other purchases on the counter.

She xylophoned her fingers along the spines, halting at one in particular which struck a familiar note; plucking it down, she read the cover affectionately: '_Hogwarts - A History'_. Well, it _was_ history now; that part of her life was over. She had begun the next chapter…

Somewhere in the distance a clock chimed three. Hermione realised that she'd have to go, or she'd be late. She took a final, lingering look around, taking comfort in the reassuring rows and stacks: paperbacks, hardbacks, pamphlets, books with mysterious bulges in their covers that might turn out to be wings, or biting jaws; furry books, squeaky books, waterproof books for aquatic or bath-time perusal, books with self-illuminating pages so that you could read in the dark… each one a treasure trove of wonderful secrets waiting to be discovered, each one a companion, a potential friend. She felt sad to think that it might be months - years perhaps - before she came back this way again. It was like saying goodbye to a dear, slightly shabby, eccentric, elderly relative.

She regretted not having had time to go through to the 'specialist' section at the back - she should have made for that first, instead of getting side-tracked by all the tacky Christmassy trivia. That was where they stored their rare and arcane volumes, the first editions, collectors' items, signed copies and, of course, the restricted 'Dark Arts' titles. She could never afford these gems, but sometimes just the act of looking, taking the valuable pages in her hands and _holding_ them, was a treat in itself. It connected her to the Old Masters in a tangible way. Perhaps it was just as well, she thought, protectively hugging her new cloak against her, away from the antiquarian grime - the cloak was the first 'grown up' piece of clothing she had bought with her salary, _her own money_, since arriving back in the country (she hadn't been near a decent shop for months - there simply _weren't_ any shops where she had been), and she was still self-consciously proud of it, not yet taking its elegant practicality for granted. The back of the book-shop was always such a dingy mess of cobwebby clutter; not many customers penetrated that far.

It was then, as Hermione was turning to leave, that she heard a sound - a voice - that imploded her stomach like a collapsing star and sent her cart-wheeling uncontrollably back through space and time. It was a voice she had not heard for two years…

"You cretinous numbskull! Leave it! I'll do it myself!" There was a frantic, scrabbling noise and a stout, red-faced assistant shot across the back aisle as fast as his bow-legs would carry him. Milliseconds later a _Curses' Compendium_, hurled with what must have been considerable force, whizzed after him, missing his puce ears by fractions of an inch, and crashed into a pyramid display of _Boggarts and Bundimuns – a Beginners' Bestiary_.

Arrested as completely as if she'd been petrified, Hermione stopped to listen.

"Mon Dieu! Merde!" The exclamation was followed by a sharp sneeze, two sneezes, and more angry muttering,

"Damnable dust!"

Hermione edged to the end of the bookcase and peered round the corner. There, a handkerchief clamped to his face, surrounded by a swirling vortex of ashy cloud, stood Severus Snape.

"_Nollecto finite_!" she heard him growl, and the tiny twister dissipated, leaving him clearing his throat and smacking dust from his cloak in annoyance.

"_Scourgify_!" Hermione murmured helpfully. "Hello, Sir." She managed to say it without a quaver, even though her vocal cords were busily knotting themselves into a noose.

He whisked round, his wand already raised; a reflex response.

"Miss Granger!" he breathed, defensive adrenalin being replaced by an altogether more subtle tension. Hermione tried to catch his eye, but, darkly elusive, he shifted his gaze to the floor where a fat, leather-bound tome lay emitting wheezy puffs like a pair of asthmatic bellows.

"_Illegibility Hex_," Snape commented by way of explanation. "Those idiots at the desk assured me that all deterrent jinxes had been counter-spelled. You'd think they were deliberately discouraging sales. They don't deserve to be in business."

It was not the friendliest of greetings, but it salvaged an awkward moment. But then, what did she expect?

"It's messy," replied Hermione, following his cue. "I thought the _Nollego_ group of Hexes was auditory - _Screechers_ and so on?"

"Some damn fool's idea of a joke," Snape said caustically, with contempt. "The assistants should be sacked for crass incompetence." He hadn't changed. _He hadn't changed_…

They seemed have exhausted the safe topic. With a final sniff, Snape pocketed his handkerchief and bent down to pick up the dusty book. He showed no inclination to pursue the conversation. Hermione took a step forwards.

"I've been away. Abroad," she said, determined to be civil, at least.

"So I see."

She felt his eyes upon her: a look of appraisal, observing at one glance her healthy, outdoor complexion, her air of new-found affluence and independence, her status - no longer that of a student. She had to keep reminding herself that she was an adult now - in front of Snape she felt like a quaking First Year.

"And yet you eschew the Travel section, in favour of the Dark Arts? You surprise me." Hermione couldn't believe her ears. Was he needling her already?

"No… no, Sir, I heard the books falling, that's all…"

"So you rushed to the rescue? How very noble. Still saving the world, I see. Once a Gryffindor… But don't let me detain you…"

Hermione clenched her teeth and took a long breath in through her nose, counting to at least ten, before she trusted herself to speak. This wasn't Hogwarts - she didn't have to stand for this. However, she was determined not to allow herself to be goaded. If she'd learned anything over the past months, it was to weigh the consequences of her actions, not to be precipitate. Snape dusted the leather cover carefully before replacing the book on the high shelf. He had turned his back on her again. Hermione wasn't sure if this signified her dismissal, that the abortive dialogue was over, but she wanted to end the conversation on her own terms.

"I'm visiting my parents for Christmas. And Crookshanks, of course." She hurried to say anything to fill the silence.

"Your animal?" he frowned, turning. "Still flea-ridden?"

That could have been a put down as well, but he had phrased it more neutrally as a question. And toned down the defensive edge in his voice. It was as though he too had needed a few moments to collect himself. Flea-ridden? Hermione was amazed. He had remembered. That had been so long ago, a triviality, a nothing. But he had remembered. She forced a soft laugh.

"That was a one-off. A Hex. He's usually very clean."

She was inwardly cringing, each new inanity a little death in her soul. Why, oh why, were they calmly discussing her cat? This was the moment she had rehearsed in her mind for two years, practising each 'casual' remark to epigrammatic perfection; the moment that had dogged her waking dreams, monopolised her imagination; the moment that had obstinately claimed squatters rights in her thoughts, working or relaxing, as she journeyed south, sustaining her across the arid miles; that had lived with her in huts and tents and rondavels, stoked campfires in the insect-clicking African dusk; the promise she had made to herself, the goal she had set herself… Somehow it had lent her patience in her work, in the endless days of debate and persuasion as she nurtured her sensitive projects through the stages from proposal to practice…

In her mind this had become the hurdle, the watershed that divided past from future, her youth from the rest of her life. The loose end that needed to be tied off and sewn in; the nagging, scratchy hang-nail waiting to be smoothed… This was the moment when she would finally confront Snape and confess to that crazy, ill-conceived, childish crush - confess and emerge with _adult_ dignity intact. This time she would not run away like a flighty, frightened schoolgirl. He still loved Lily. OK, she respected that, she had accepted the fact. She was over him. This was the moment to clear up the misunderstanding once and forever. And move on. She had resolved to do it the very first opportunity she had, and this was it. This was the moment at last, _and they were talking about Crookshanks?_

"You're looking well, Sir."

Oh, Merlin! That wasn't in her script at all. Why had she said that? Because the last time she had seen him he'd been barely conscious, recovering from a potentially fatal snake bite, racked with pain, prostrate and deathly pale. That was the picture she had nursed in her memory all these months. By comparison, anyone would look well. A ghost would look well.

And she had imagined she was in love with him! It made her blush just to think of it. At least she had maintained some self-respect; she hadn't been too impulsive – she'd got out before she'd said or done anything she would later regret. Though sometimes she had found herself secretly wishing she'd been that little bit bolder, that she'd kissed him while she had the chance - purely to get it out of her system - while he'd been too weak to object, while she had held him in her arms…

Snape coloured. He also remembered their last meeting: she had seen him wounded and helpless and she had fled back to Hogwarts disillusioned, in disgust. He didn't blame her. He must have been delirious to have imagined otherwise…

The distant clock chimed a quarter and Hermione started. She bottled out. Now wasn't a good time; she was too rushed; he had taken her by surprise. Flustered - and _that_ wasn't in the script either - she gabbled a goodbye. _Slow down, slow down, slow down…_

"I'm sorry. I have to go. I'm meeting someone at three. Well, it was supposed to be three. I'm late as it is. Actually, it's Remus I'm meeting - er, Professor Lupin. For coffee, in _Fortescue's_. Or tea, probably, knowing Remus. You're welcome to join us, Sir, if you'd like to. I'd… well, it's entirely up to you. I really must go now. It's good to see you…"

All notions of a chic, cosmopolitan kiss on both cheeks scuttled away with the dregs of her composure. She extended her hand, praying it was not too clammy. He took it in silence. As their skin touched, Hermione's remaining poise liquefied into molten confusion. Two years' worth of resolutions dissolved in a handshake.

**End of Chapter. Next chapter : HERMIONE:HARRY. Flashback to 1996. What did happen when Hermione abandoned Snape in such a hurry?**


	2. Hermione : Harry

**LOST PERSPECTIVE 5**

**READ MY MIND **

**  
By Bellegeste**

**Author's Note: We go back two years to Harry's year 6. It is a couple of days after Hermione walked out of Snape Cottage .**

**This chapter contains some strong language from Harry (which I usually reserve for Draco) but he is very upset, even to the point of being deliberately offensive in order to get back at Hermione. **

**Working on the principle of 'the first cut is the deepest', I have portrayed Hermione's passion for Snape as very intense and overwhelming - though she is rational enough not to make a fool of herself by going public. I don't think this is OC - even intellectuals have their fantasies! I think she is inexperienced and naïve, though, so it doesn't get lurid… (After all, I am a responsible parent - don't expect it to get much more graphic than this! Sorry.)**

**Chapter 2 :****HERMIONE : HARRY **

**November 1996 **Hogwarts

"I want to talk to you! Now. Outside."

Harry didn't even bother to lower his voice. The whole room echoed with the promise of scandal. A chorus of half-hearted "Shhhs" hissed from behind the desks and partitions and, at the far end of the library, Madam Pince was already flapping to her feet to evict the noisy intruder in her hushed, studiously silent domain.

Harry rudely flipped the text-book shut, before Hermione had a chance to mark the page.

"Thanks a lot! I was reading that!" she grumbled.

"Not any more you're not. Out! Come back for your stuff later," he instructed coldly.

Madam Pince was almost upon them, her beaky intolerance whetted into pecking mode. Harry, who had been lowering over Hermione where she sat, drew himself up from his intimidating pose, and swung round to face the diminutive librarian. He was at least a foot taller than she was. He spread his arms with a half-shrug, in a gesture of mock surrender.

"OK, OK, we're going," he said, insolently.

"Who the hell do you think you are, Harry? What's got into you?" Hermione muttered. But she got up and followed him out into the corridor. She had been expecting a visit from Harry for the past two days, ever since her abrupt, unscheduled departure from Snape Cottage. She had left without a word of explanation or apology - without even a goodbye. That was 'bad form' and she knew it. Her middle-class conventionality demanded a note, an owl, at the very least.

She had felt that staying would serve no useful purpose. There was nothing she could do to help Snape: by the morning the antidote would have taken full effect, and, until then, Harry could look after him adequately enough.

Hermione had known from the second Snape had uttered Lily's name, that she had to go. However much it hurt to leave, she couldn't stay to be the object of his indifference. It was too humiliating, too painful. He might have guessed the truth and laughed at her, derided her or, worse still, pitied her.

It had all been a fantasy after all, a foolish delusion. What madness had ever let her imagine, for one instant, that she might have meant anything to him? He was undoubtedly lonely and stressed and depressed, and now the stupid snake had bitten him too… but he'd get over all that. None of it meant that he needed her, or was remotely interested in her. She'd been kidding herself. What a joke! How insufferably presumptuous!

She'd realised the truth when she'd held him for that brief moment. It had suddenly ceased to be a game. Up until then she'd been dabbling with a dream - she'd known it, even at the time, but had allowed herself to go along with it anyway. Building her romantic folly in her rose-tinted garden… an exercise in snake-charming, dragon-taming… she would be the one to subdue the beast, discover the gentle, sensitive, inner core, win-over the wild, passionate heart of the Potions master… Hermione Granger would succeed where everybody else had failed. (Except Lily. Damn Lily! What had Lily got that she didn't?) Had she ever really been serious, or was it just another intellectual challenge? What would she have done if he had called her bluff? If he had responded… caught her in his arms… kissed her? Run a mile probably! Something about its sheer impossibility made it safe: appealing in the abstract; alarming in actuality, in its implications…

But now, since that awakening, he was no longer an idealised, emotional enigma; she couldn't intellectualise any more about a meeting of minds, or about having artistic interests in common. The reality was far less rarified: she had held him and she had _wanted_ him - and she had known that it was _wrong_.

Hermione hadn't seriously thought about him in _that_ way before - _duh! How old am I? Am I naïve, or what? _She squirmed. Her romantic dream still had more to do with Platonic friendship and courtly convention than earthy passion. It wasn't that she was a prude, she simply had not allowed herself to go there… Not when she was thinking about Snape. It was too dangerous, too _adult_. It made her fling with Victor Krum seem like a kiddies' party charade.

Up until then she'd been playing make-believe, stroking the pretence and leaning blissfully back into the arms of a chaste infatuation. But now everything had changed; she'd woken up. Suddenly her mind was alive with real desires, so intense, so _explicit_ that they frightened her. She hadn't expected to feel like this; it had taken her completely by surprise; she should have seen it coming, but she'd thought - oh, so innocently - that she would be able to _compartmentalise_ her emotions. And she had thought, if she were being honest, that in any relationship with Snape **she** would have been the one who was calling the shots, physically at least. It wasn't supposed to happen this way…

She felt like the archetypal Eve, seduced by temptation. It was thrilling and exciting and forbidden **and, **she kept telling herself severely, _it was all in her head_. Nothing had happened and nothing ever would. It felt wrong, very wrong indeed.

She had had to leave Snape Cottage, and now she would have to leave Hogwarts too. Maybe Dumbledore could arrange for her to transfer to Beauxbatons - al least she already had a smattering of the language. One thing was certain, there was absolutely no way she could remain in this school, attending _his_ Potions classes… She could imagine the ordeal of seeing him in the dungeons every day, hearing that smooth but crisply articulated voice, watching the decisive, precise movement of his hand as he flicked his wand at the blackboard… the way his cloak slid back from his arm as he stretched up… the white, sharp definition of his wrist-bone…the flare of his nostrils as he inhaled the steam rising from a cauldron…the thin, tight, upward curl at the corner of his mouth that preceded each sardonic rejoinder…and, when he was concentrating or tired, the way he slid his fingers through his hair, massaging his temples… She could not bear to be there, feeling as she did now, knowing that she could never touch him, or be near him, never give him any indication as to how she felt. It was impossible. She didn't think she could endure it for a day, let alone the next five terms…

As the library door closed with a chesty 'clunk' behind them, Hermione broke into the overdue apology:

"Look, Harry, I know I shouldn't have gone off like that. I'm sorry, OK? I'm sorry. I just couldn't… it… it didn't seem… How is he anyway? Sn - your father? Is he alright now? Is he better?" Somehow she didn't want to say his name out loud in front of Harry.

"You've got a fucking nerve!" Harry was already striding away; Hermione had to scurry to keep up with him. She hadn't expected him to be quite so angry. Put out, maybe, judgemental, but not so aggressive. After all, she had tried to do the right thing by leaving before the situation got too awkward.

"Harry! Slow down! Do we have to go outside? It's freezing. Or, if we do, can't it wait - preferably until the summer?" He didn't smile. "Can't we talk about it here?"

"Here?" He chucked out the kind of supercilious sneer that would have been worthy of Malfoy. "Here? Well, if you're sure… If you don't mind all the portraits and Peeves and Nick and the Baron and probably Mrs Norris too, and the whole bloody school, for all I care, hearing that you and my - "

"Alright!" He was right - you never knew who'd be listening in the castle. How many times in the past had they narrowly missed being caught by Filch, appearing out of nowhere in an apparently empty corridor; or sneaked around a corner, only to come face to face with Snape on night patrol - her insides fluttered at the thought.

They were on the side of the school that looked out over the Quidditch pitches. Harry shouldered open the door that he'd used so many times on his way to and from matches and stormed out, letting the door swing back into Hermione's face. The November afternoon was colourless and with a dank chill in the air, sharpened by a slicing wind. Above the Stands, already with the floodlights blazing, dark figures swooped and wheeled. At this distance it was difficult to make out individuals, their team robes damply indistinguishable. From their manoeuvres it appeared to be a defensive game: Gryffindor was struggling.

For a moment the game claimed him and Harry stopped, eyes flicking from player to player, following their moves with a pained expression. Just then Slytherin scored, and a roar went up in the stands. Snatches of the Slytherin victory anthem, updated with a new verse sung to 'Yankee Doodle', were blown to them on the breeze:

_"Get back in your biscuit tin, Ginger, Ginger!_

_Get back in your biscuit tin, Ginger, Ginger-Nut!_

_Weasley is our King…! Weasley is our king…!"_

Ron had evidently lost Gryffindor the match. He would be sulking for the rest of the day now. Shaking his head, and with a hissing intake of breath, Harry turned his attention back to Hermione.

"What the fuck did you think you were doing?" he demanded viciously. "What did you do? What did you **_say_** to him, for Merlin's sake? You little bitch! I hope you've got something to say for yourself. This had better be good? Well?" His face was brutal with anger, hurt and disappointment. Hermione felt a stab of concern for her friend, but at the same time she shrank from him; like this he was ugly, alarming.

"What's happened?"

"What's _happened_?" he repeated, scoffing. "As if you had to ask! You tell me! You didn't waste much time! What was it - bribery? Emotional blackmail? What? It's sick. It's _snide_, that's what it is. Oh Merlin! Don't tell me. I don't want to know. It's disgusting. I don't even want to think about it!" He thrust his hands into his pockets and turned his back, leaving Hermione perplexed and, for the moment at least, more anxious than indignant.

"What's he done? What's he said?" she asked, her voice tremulous.

"Oh, so you're worried now, are you? Too damn right! Said? About you, you mean? What should he say? Nothing. He's said _nothing_. He's too sodding honourable to _say_ anything. No, he's only bloody talking about _resigning_, that's what!"

"Resigning!"

"Leaving Hogwarts. Now, straightaway, 'with immediate effect' is how he phrased it."

"But he can't!" A sad, strangled mewl escaped her and she gulped back the urge to wail out loud and fell instinctively silent, like a lost tiger cub, abandoned in the jungle. It was one thing for her to make a grand gesture and talk about changing schools, but, if Snape resigned, the situation would be totally out of her control. She might never see him again. Wasn't that _supposed_ to be what she wanted? Oh hell!

Perhaps he had read her mind after all. Her torrid, over-dramatised, adolescent soap-opera of a mind. And he had been shocked, sickened. So much so that he had to resign? Surely not. Professor Snape would be able to quash a teenage crush with a single, soul-shrivelling glance. He didn't have to resign. Was it the scandal, then? Was he afraid that his professional standing would be irreparably compromised? What did he think she was going to do - broadcast it? Go to the _Daily Prophet_?

For the sake of appearances, she tried to resuscitate the old Hermione Granger and respond accordingly:

"But what about our NEWTs? He can't leave us in the lurch! Who's going to teach us the syllabus? We can't go on having Pomfrey and Sprout for the next two years. We'll know so much about Herbs and Healing Potions we'll all have to become Medi-witches!"

Harry raked her with a hostile, unsympathetic glare.

"Is that all you care about? Your bloody exams? Passing NEWTs? Is that what this is really about - sucking up to him for the sake of your grades? That is so pathetic! You don't give a damn about him! And there he is, giving up his career and the protection of Dumbledore, everything he's ever worked for. All because of you!"

"Did he say that?" Beneath her anxiety, Hermione couldn't help but detect a pulse of hope, secretly flattered.

"He didn't have to. Isn't it obvious? Why else would he leave?"

"**I don't know**, but it's not because of **me**. He's been awfully fed-up lately - what about all that business with Ravenclaw? And Eamon. He's not exactly _rational_ right now. He's not been well, Harry. Perhaps he is cracking up. Perhaps it's some kind of a mid-life crisis. How should I know? Perhaps he just needs to get away for a bit, thinks it's time for a change. **Nothing**'s been going on, Harry, I swear. Do you really think I'd be stupid enough to tell him? Harry, he has _absolutely no idea_ how I feel… how I **_felt_**."

Harry glared at her accusingly, but her shocked innocence had awakened doubts. Had he mis-read the situation? Snape hadn't referred to Hermione at all. He hadn't even commented on her departure. Harry had thought that, in itself, to be suspicious. Snape had entered the kitchen in the morning, to all intents and purposes recovered from the Viper bite, any residual pain or discomfort henceforth unmentionable, and in a single glance he had absorbed Hermione's absence. Harry had made some lame excuse about homework, or something, and Snape had nodded. The subject was closed. But he had seemed distracted, he'd toyed with his coffee and then left the room abruptly. Seconds later, Harry had heard the front door slam.

He could guess where Snape had gone. To the plateau on the hill overlooking the valley and Snape Manor. That place exerted an inexplicable, unseen force on Snape: he sensed a kind of negative empathy with the landscape, drawing solace from its windswept solitude. He went there when he needed to think, to be alone, to duel with the 'dark dragon'.

Harry knew better than to follow him. When Snape returned some time later that morning, Harry had eyed him acutely, analysing his father's tired, cold, pale face for signs of guilt, anger, grief, love - for the giveaway traces of tears even. But Snape's emotions were solidly petrified behind a mask of neutrality, and Harry had to draw his own conclusions.

**End of chapter. Next Chapter : SNAPE:DUMBLEDORE. Will Dumbledore accept Snape's resignation? And how exactly does Snape feel about all this?**


	3. Snape : Dumbledore

**LOST PERSPECTIVE 5**

**READ MY MIND**

**By Bellegeste**

**Reviews: Thanks Duj. Perfectly succinct summary of Hermione's motivation.**

**Avery: Yes, it has been a challenge to see if I can pair SS/HG believably -I usually steer clear of anything overtly romantic. Issues with Dumbledore and Malfoy, eh? You can't just say that and not tell me what they are! e- me or something. **

**Author's note: This chapter started off as a few paragraphs tacked onto the Harry:Hermione conversation, but then I decided that I perhaps had not made Snape's feelings clear enough.**

**Also, there was a loose end from 'Post Mortem' that I wanted to tidy up…**

**We are still in November '96. Snape reports back to Dumbledore as soon as he can. Why not use owls? He just doesn't trust 'em! (Wouldn't maker much of a chapter either.)**

**Chapter 3 : SNAPE : DUMBLEDORE**

**November 1996 : **Hogwarts

"You're sure about this, Severus?"

Professor Dumbledore gave three final, even twists of the delicate, golden key, gently re-winding the mechanism of the ancient planetarium, and slowly the planets resumed their leisurely, purring orbits. Snape suppressed a sigh of impatience. He could, at a pinch, understand why the old headmaster was so fond of these ridiculous, early astronomical gadgets - they were beautifully crafted works of art, and this particular one had originally belonged, so it was said, to the 16th Century Astromancer, Astilbus of Rǔm, predating the Muggle Galileo by over a hundred years - but they were _so_ inconvenient. They were hopelessly inaccurate, needed regular oiling and maintenance, daily winding and they ticked. It was enough to destroy your concentration completely. A magical version would have had the gleaming, gold and silver spheres executing their elliptical, oblique or synchronous orbits in perfect, deep-space silence.

"As sure as I can be. The boy did not go into specifics, but the implication was clear. The inference is incontrovertible. The Dark Lord is planning some kind of an assault on Azkaban, with the objective of releasing his supporters, notably Lucius Malfoy.

"It ties in with other evidence. You have, I presume, been monitoring reports in the _Daily Prophet_? The pranks, terrorist action – whatever you wish to call them - against Muggles have dwindled to almost zero in recent days. I also have my own reason to believe that the attention of the Dark Lord has found a new focus…"

"The Mark?" Dumbledore questioned, with sympathy.

"Considerably less painful in the last couple of days," admitted Snape. He was pacing the room, deftly navigating a route through the piles of books and strewn artefacts. As he passed Fawkes, the Phoenix cocked his scarlet head to one side and emitted a threatening squawk. With the bland smile of a doting parent, Dumbledore offered the bird a sprig of fresh coriander leaves.

"You are positive? There can be no mistaking Draco's intentions?" he asked.

"Headmaster, it was a direct approach. Naturally, I refused."

"And when did this conversation take place, Severus?"

"Last Thursday. I apologise - I would have voiced my suspicions sooner, but… In any event, from what the boy said, I believe the attack to be in the latter planning stages rather than imminent."

He stopped circling the room, seething in silent exasperation at the burgeoning heaps of oddments that festooned the one remaining chair not already groaning under a stack of books. The old wizard really kept his office uncomfortably warm and Snape was beginning to feel dizzy; he needed to sit down. He grabbed a sheaf of papers and dumped them unceremoniously on the floor.

"Oh, be my guest, Severus - do take a seat," smiled Dumbledore belatedly. "Miss Granger - " (Snape tensed at the mention of the name) "…informed me that there had been an accident with one of your more venomous specimens. A most unfortunate occurrence. But if you must insist on playing with these grisly creatures… You're looking tired. Are you sure you are fully recovered?"

"The antidote was adequate," said Snape quietly. He was hardly going to complain to Dumbledore that holding a quill was excruciating, and using his right arm at all was still a grim exercise in mind over matter. He wasn't going to give that Pomfrey woman the satisfaction of telling him 'I told you so'.

Humming to himself, the old wizard began to rifle through a tower of notes and letters on his desk, eventually extracting a sheet of ostentatiously weighty, crested parchment, scripted in a sheeny, bronze metallic ink. He passed the letter to Snape.

"What do you make of this? I fear it may indicate that their plans are more advanced than we had supposed."

The letter requested - demanded - permission for Draco Malfoy to attend the 'funeral' of a distant relative.

"Malfoy left this morning. I couldn't very well refuse," said Dumbledore, "but in the light of what you have just told me, Severus, I begin to have grave misgivings… the letter is most clearly a pretext."

Snape's expression was one of dismay.

"That stupid, _stupid_ boy!" he exclaimed. "You're right, Albus, this changes things considerably. The Ministry must be informed immediately. They will need to implement emergency security measures: intensify the perimeter wards around the prison, double the guards and sentries - they know the procedure - and remain on full alert until further notice. We'll also need to mobilise the Order at once. Can I leave this in your hands, Headmaster? I must hurry…"

He stood up, fired with a sense of purpose and urgency he had not felt for weeks.

"Hurry? Severus, surely you do not intend to undertake this alone? For one thing, you're hardly in any condition … and, consider the risks…"

Dumbledore recognised the flash of devil-may-care, Death Eater impetuosity in the Potion Master's eyes. Snape stopped, his hand already on the door handle.

"Defend Azkaban single-handed? Now that would be rash. I am perfectly aware of that. You may think me cavalier, but I am not foolhardy. Someone has to extricate young Malfoy, before he becomes the next casualty of this madness. Now, if that is all, Headmaster…"

Once more Snape reached for the door, but his hand encountered only swirling intangibility.

"What the… !" he muttered, swivelling on his heel. Dumbledore's index finger was raised, tracing tiny circles in the air as he reduced the door to a temporarily impassable wooden whirlpool.

"One more thing before you go, Severus. You said when you arrived that you had _two_ issues you wished to discuss with me. What was the second? Am I to understand that you are involved in some kind of '_situation_'?"

Snape's features instantly frosted, glazing over, glacially impenetrable. A defensive formality slid into his voice.

"Not at all. I was intending to give you this."

A stiff envelope appeared momentarily in his hand, then skimmed through the air to land neatly on Dumbledore's desk. The leaning piles of notes and other correspondence parted and drew back, deferring to status. The eyes of the two wizards met…

"Severus, you know I cannot - I will not - accept this," said the older man, sorrowfully. "There must be another way. Consider the possibility of a sabbatical, an extended leave of absence - allow yourself time to pursue your research. We should talk about it - "

"That can wait." Snape did not want to be talked out of his decision - it had been traumatic enough already. "The current crisis with the Malfoys takes priority. _Now_, may I leave, Professor?"

His impatience to go was intensified by the knowledge that, if he remained with the Headmaster, he would be obliged to explain himself. And he didn't know if he could. How could he explain that although nothing had happened, yet he felt himself to be at risk… that for the first time in years he had been tempted to abandon his principles, to cross the pupil/teacher divide. That child - and she was, he reminded himself, a _child_ – had been so _available_, it would have been so easy…

And yet there was something different about her. Available, maybe, but not in the pubescent, provocative way he associated with some of the little madams he taught, who flaunted their budding sexuality, wearing it overtly, like a new and glitzy outfit. She wasn't one of the 'tarty harpies' who sometimes tried it on in class - as a joke, he assumed - with their alluring pouts and tantalising, sashaying walks that left him in no doubt as to the nubile curves beneath the cloaks; the young, pert breasts thrusting like witches' hats beneath the tightly-fitting robes… Did they do it just to embarrass him? For a dare? He always affected indifference; pretended not to notice. But he had consciously perfected the dismissive sneer that stripped them of their seductive pretensions. They never tried it more than once…

So what was it about this girl that got to him? For Merlin's sake, more than once he had felt himself on the verge of _confiding_ in her - what was that about? He had never confided in anyone in his life! (Except Harry, he corrected himself.) What was it about the Granger girl? This Gryffindor? A Gryffindor, of all people! She was an irritating brat, most of the time. Or she had been. Hadn't he even told her so once? What was it he'd called her? 'An insufferable know-it-all'? He stood by that. These precocious kids needed taking down a peg - for their own good, as much as anything. But that was several years ago now. Sometimes first impressions stay rooted in one's mind, blocking the growth of a finer perception. He couldn't honestly say that he'd noticed her growing up. Often it was the bright ones who received less than their fair share of attention, while he concentrated his efforts on the Longbottoms of this world. He'd pretty much left Granger to her own devices in Potions - these high-achievers progressed under their own momentum.

Then, this term, she had appeared as a presence in his life. It was all because of Harry, of course. Her relationship with Harry. In acknowledging the boy, he seemed to have been landed with his friends as a job lot. And, finally, he had noticed her; noticed something different about her… Something indefinable… not specifically physical… A sincerity in her, a depth…? Qualities not fully formed, as yet; immature, but powerful, full of potential. Instinctively, he was drawn to her. That and the fact that she had been kind, at a time when he had felt so totally abject and alone…

He had kept his distance up until now - again, instinctively, though, had he been pushed, he would have had to admit that 'honour' was only one reason for his reserve. It was a matter of self-respect, of not betraying the fact that he was fallible, he could be tempted. But he was haunted by a doubt… by a pair of pleading green eyes… by the suspicion that he might not always be able to resist, that he was not a truly _good_ man.

Dumbledore could feel the waves of conflict radiating from the Potions master. He surveyed the younger wizard with mounting concern. For the past twenty-five years or so he had watched Snape grow from a troubled, confused teenager to a man of integrity, with keenly held convictions and a strictly defined concept of justice. The development had been anything but straightforward. For a while Dumbledore thought he had lost him. But he had returned to the fold and had proved his loyalty and commitment ever since. Time and again, he had risked his life for the Order, had persevered, had endured injury and torture - mental and physical – with uncomplaining fortitude. And at the same time he had proved himself to be an incomparable teacher. True, he had the reputation of being something of a tyrant, and his methods were unconventional, but his students' results were outstanding. Never, during his time on the Hogwarts' staff, had his morality been called into question. Now, however, it was clear to Dumbledore that there was a problem.

"Sit down, Severus."

"Another time, Professor."

"Severus, sit down!" Snape looked from the impassable Charybdis before him to the solemn face of the Headmaster, and reluctantly obeyed. An armchair emptied itself and he sank into its faded chintz with a sigh of submission.

"I really don't have time for this," he protested weakly.

"A few minutes delay is hardly likely to reverse the fortunes of Mr Malfoy - senior or junior," the old wizard pointed out. "But it may alter the course of your career. You cannot expect me, Severus, to see you throw away a lifetime's work without raising objections.

"Now, can I offer you anything? Tea, a Sherbet Bon-bon, Firewhisky? A grape?"

"Don't let me deprive the damn bird," muttered Snape.

"Quite so. You may have need of his lachrymal services one day…"

"Over my dead body!"

"Very possibly…"

It was an old joke between them, and it raised a faint smile. Fawkes' dislike of Snape was legendary.

"Why such a drastic step, Severus? If it's a matter of time… take another week; take a holiday…"

"It's not that…"

"Take as long as you need. I'll not quibble. You're the best Potions master this school has ever had - do you think I'd risk losing you for the sake of a few days one way or the other?"

Snape was aware of his value to the school. It was just depressing to have it confirmed: he would not be missed for his charm, wit and endearing personality. He knew Dumbledore was waiting for an answer, but he found himself staring at the planetarium - Mars, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn… watching the little spheres revolving around their pre-determined orbits, safely spinning within their separately allocated dimensions, never colliding, never over-lapping…There was no unexpected, giant, alien comet crashing through their solar system…

"Severus?"

"Headmaster. I appreciate that you require an explanation. It's just that… I fear… Over the last few weeks… I feel…" He scowled; let his gaze fall to the floor; brought his hand to his brow, supporting his forehead, rubbing his temples.

"Take your time, my boy…"

"In my past… there are 'incidents' which I now regret…which I should like to forget…but I cannot. _I cannot_…"

Dumbledore nodded, silently willing the younger wizard to deeper confidences.

"Events this term …" Snape began again, floundering almost immediately as he came up against the inner wards that repressed the urge to unburden himself. He experienced a flash of what Longbottom must feel, he realised, singled out for attention, put on the spot and required to analyse a sequence of reactions which were to him both illogical and incomprehensible.

"The news about Harry came as a shock to us all, Severus. In retrospect, I fear, we have been less than supportive… But you seemed to be adjusting admirably. It has been a stressful time; it is understandable that you should feel under pressure. But surely that does not warrant your resignation?"

"I have forfeited the respect of staff and students alike. My position here is untenable. I find myself unable to continue teaching." Could he put it any more plainly?

Dumbledore adopted a placatory tone.

"We all make mistakes. Anxiety is not a sackable offence. I think the school might be persuaded to overlook an isolated 'indiscretion'…" Snape's lips tightened. "You are referring, I assume, Severus, to the, er, 'episode' with Ravenclaw Year 5? Regrettable, but not unforgivable."

Snape's eyes finally lifted to meet Dumbledore's. His considered, guarded response was the closest he could bring himself to a confession.

"I no longer feel that I can vouch for my behaviour. It would be irresponsible of me to remain in employment here. That is all I can say. I have to leave."

He stood up decisively, matching the action to the words, walking towards the door. Dumbledore did not doubt his sincerity, but he guessed that Snape had fobbed him off with only a partial explanation.

"Severus, before you go, is there anything _else_ you want to tell me?" he asked gently. It was not the first time he had offered this opening to a student. Possibly even, in years gone by,to Severus himself.

"There is nothing to tell."

Dumbledore did not give up. He knew Snape too well.

"Is there anything I can… Severus, would you like me to speak to…er, _anyone_, on your behalf?" Even he found the subject a tricky one to broach. Snape clung to his denial, staunchly resistant to the old man's overtures. He was too proud, too independent, too ashamed to accept help.

"No. Don't say anything. There is nothing to say. Nothing to tell." He repeated the phrase, reassuring himself.

"Are you sure of that? Have you discussed this with, er…the person concerned?"

Dumbledore's persistent questions were scraping at Snape's resolve like a dentist scouring an infected tooth. Any minute now the probe would hit the nerve.

"No. I have not. I'm sorry, Headmaster, but I have no intention of discussing this with you or… or with anyone else."

_What could he possibly say to her? That she was no longer safe under his supervision? That, if the opportunity arose, he might take advantage of her good-nature? Would he sink so low? He didn't know. It was a deplorable thought, contemptible. But his reaction to the stresses of the last few weeks had surprised even himself. His self-control was shot. Sooner or later something inside him was going to snap - and he didn't want Granger to be around when it did._

"This is wasting time, Headmaster. Will you please release the door?"

"An abrupt departure, my boy, may not be the wisest course of action. You may be leaving a situation unresolved…"

"**There is no situation!**"

Dumbledore sighed and reluctantly relinquished the spell. Snape's protestations had done little to allay his suspicions. One day a tearfully adamant sixth form student comes to him requesting a transfer to Beauxbatons… and the following day, the Potions Master hands in his resignation… Now, if that didn't add up to a '_situation_' he didn't know what did!

**End of Chapter. Next chapter: HERMIONE : REMUS. Forward to 1998. What had Hermione been up to in Africa? What had happened in the intervening two years? **


	4. Hermione : Remus

**LOST PERSPECTIVE 5**

**READ MY MIND**

**By Bellegeste**

**Author's notes:**

**Avery: thanks for clarifying. Think you're right, esp. re. Malfoy. If I ever went back and did a re-write of LP1, I would probably flesh-out Draco's reactions more fully. At that time I was using him more as a tool, and concentrating on Harry (and it was my first ever fic!)**

**Duj: we find out in this chapter!**

**Here we have the Hermione:Remus interaction. We are in 1998 now. The point of this chapter is to fill in a lot of the gaps about what happened in the intervening two years (because, in this story, the focus is what happened THEN and what they do about it NOW, not what went on in the middle…). I am also setting up the Snape:Draco and Snape:Hermione dialogues.**

**Hermione has an easy-going, friendly relationship with Remus. In a later chapter I contrast this with how she relates and talks to Snape…**

**So, Hermione hurries from _Flourish and Blotts_ to meet Remus for tea…**

**Chapter 4 :HERMIONE : REMUS**

December 1998

Diagon Alley

Hermione paused under the green, white and red striped awning outside _Fortescue's_, to collect herself. She brushed a sprinkling of snow from her shoulders, and stamped her boots a couple of times to clear them. It always snowed in the Alley at Christmas time: for twelve white days it was predictably picturesque, and then on the 7th January it reverted to normal, taking its cue from the conditions in the rest of London which sometimes, but only occasionally, included snow. On Christmas day itself, Florean celebrated by creating a climate bubble covering the pavement outside the shop: customers could sit in sunny, _al fresco_ comfort, enjoying their ice-cream, watching the snow around them and listening to the Carol singers. He didn't do it all the time though; weather magic took a great deal of concentration.

The meeting with Snape had thrown her. Half an hour ago she had been strolling down the Alley, confident and calm, with the world at her finger-tips, ready to play her tune… and now? Well, now she just felt like she'd swallowed a fistful of feathers, and they were tickling and twirling inside her. Things had not gone according to plan.

She checked her reflection again in the shop window, fluffing her hair a little, settling the hood of her cloak just far enough back so that she could see in all directions, while still retaining an intriguing air of hidden mystery… The idea made her smile at herself - she had no pretensions about playing the _femme fatale_. It wasn't that she wanted to look especially attractive for Remus' sake, but she wanted to impress him all the same. She didn't want to remind him of a _schoolgirl_.

As soon as she opened the door she saw him. He was sitting inconspicuously at a round table at the rear of the café, a tea mug cupped between his hands. Despite the jaunty tinkle of the shop bell, he didn't look up.

"Remus!" she cried, hurrying over, all notions of making a sophisticated entrance forgotten in her joy at seeing him again. "Remus! There you are!"

"Hermione! …er, Miss Granger…" Crumpled and self-conscious, the werewolf rose to greet her, diffidently proffering a hand, unsure of the protocol for meeting former students who had suddenly metamorphosed into rather terrifying young women. "My goodness, you're looking awfully, um, 'grown up'; no, really, you look marvellous, Miss Granger, by gosh you do. Travelling must suit you. I _can_ still call you that, can't I? I mean, you haven't come back with some fancy title or anything, have you? You are still…" Here he snatched a surreptitious glance at the fingers of her left hand, "…_Miss_ Granger, aren't you? It's so long since I've seen you - I'm frightfully out of touch with these things…"

Hermione, clasping his hand affectionately between both of her own, tugged him towards her.

"Just give me a hug, and shut up, Remus. Don't be a goose," she said.

X X X

"I'm afraid I already ordered," Remus apologised, indicating the tea-pot. "I thought perhaps you weren't coming… Something might have happened; after all, things do crop up… I would have quite understood…" He was even more self-effacing than she remembered. "I'll order some more; that pot'll be stewed…"

"Oh, don't bother," Hermione smiled happily. "After the muck I've been drinking for the past few months, I'm sure it'll taste divine. In fact, anything with _real milk_ in it will taste heavenly. The stuff that passes for tea out there - it's unbelievable. For a start, it's always black - no, I tell a lie, I did once have some with rancid Kudu curd in it… That was _so_ disgusting! The tea's either so weak it might as well be hot water, or so strong your throat seizes up when you try to swallow it - in some places they boil it up in the morning and leave it brewing all day. Remus, can you imagine?" He shuddered obligingly. "And it's either laced with cardamom, or it's hideously sweet - but they tend not to use proper sugar: honey's the thing out there, but it's not filtered or anything, so you get all these little waxy lumps from the honeycomb sort of floating about melting… Or else - Oh, you don't want to know - "

"Go on, tell me!" he urged, laughing.

"Well, there are these 'honeydew' ants… they collect nectar and store it up so that their abdomens get all distended with honey… No, I'm not joking - the people put a spoonful of dead ants (grief, I _hope_ they're dead!) in the glass, and you have to, kind of, squidge them up with a stick…

"Honestly, Remus, proper tea, in a cup, out of a pot, with milk and **no** sugar - that's sheer luxury!"

"You've shattered my illusions," he teased. "You're telling me that Hogwarts' star student, the most talented witch the school has seen since Li - er, since, er, for a very long time; the girl whose NEWT scores are probably as good as Dumbledore's - you're telling me she can't magic up a simple spoonful of sugar? Or subtract it? Have I got this right? You were with _Wizard-Aid_ in Africa, weren't you? They are _allowed_ to do magic out there?"

"Yes, of course. Or, rather, no. It's a very grey area, Remus. That's part of the problem; it's all so confused. The borderline between magic and belief and superstition is terribly blurred - you wouldn't believe it - you have to be incredibly careful what you do. '_C'est difficile_!' - that's all they say when you come across any kind of ambiguity. Sometimes you can hardly tell real magic from the 'mumbo-jumbo'. Hey, that reminds me…"

Hermione reached down and fished in one of her carrier bags. She pulled out a small, coarsely tied package.

"I almost forgot. I brought you a present." She pushed it across the table. "It's nothing special; just a souvenir…"

"You shouldn't have…" Lupin began to pick undone the knotted strands of hemp that secured the papery banana-leaf wrapping. "Oh, but Hermione! This _is_ special! That's a…" he exclaimed, lost for words, eyeing the object with a mixture of pleasure and uncertainty.

"…a genuine, authentic _gris-gris_!" She finished the sentence for him. "Made for you by the chief Marabout in Mali. It'll protect you against the 'evil eye', and make you irresistible to women." She flirted her eyebrows… "Or have you already got one?"

Embarrassed beyond belief by her teasing, and loving every minute of it, Remus examined the amulet. It looked, for all the world, like something Crookshanks might have coughed up, but on a string.

"Of course I've heard of _gris-gris_ before, and I've looked at pictures, but I've never seen a real one," he said wonderingly. "Thank you, Hermione. This is great. What's it made of?"

"Aha! That's the Marabout's magic secret. But I do know it involves the claw of a pregnant lioness that has been steeped for a week in the urine of a Niger river imp, all wrapped in the skin of a ritually slaughtered black cat. Careful! You're not allowed to undo it - heaven knows what dire disaster would befall you - but the claw is inscribed with powerful words from the Book of Merlin.

"You can wear it round your neck, if you like. Or just keep it in your pocket. Or in an old shoebox under your bed, if you want…

"Do you see what I mean though, Remus? Where does magic end and tribal folklore begin? It's like that with everything. And there are so many serious issues to address too - ethical, social, environmental… Oh, don't get me started on politics… Let's talk about something else. How are _you_? How's Hogwarts?"

"OK, but I do want to hear all about it sometime - Africa, I mean." Lupin put on the amulet and sat back in his chair, relaxing in her presence now, the old friendship surfacing, compensating for his shyness. "I just can't get over how fabulous you look, Hermione. You've done something to your hair…"

"Not me. Sunshine. It's hot out there."

He was embarrassed again, having paid her the kind of compliment that would have had had him in agonies if he had been planning it as a 'line'.

"Have you seen Harry yet?" he asked.

The sun went behind a cloud.

"No," she answered sadly, "I don't even know where he is. Or Ron. I've only been home a couple of days. I was going to send him an owl sometime, now that I'm back in Diagon Alley. I haven't got one of my own, you know - it's still just me and Crookshanks - and my parents don't, obviously. Harry and I haven't really kept in touch, since I went. Everything was a bit weird, after last year…"

"You still haven't managed to patch things up then?" Lupin asked gently. Even after all this time, he didn't know exactly what had happened to split up the trio. None of the staff did, apparently. It had been a topic of conjecture in the staffroom for weeks. Sometimes he thought Dumbledore had a shrewd idea, but the headmaster seldom voiced an opinion on his students' relationships. The three of them - Harry, Ron and Hermione - had obviously had some major bust up: rumour had it that Luna Lovegood was involved somehow. It did sound as though she had been a catalyst in the trouble - after all, she had got Harry mixed up with all that spiritual business, convincing the boy that he could make contact with Sirius. Perhaps there was more to that than the teachers realised.

And Harry had been particularly touchy about Snape taking that extended leave. It must have been a blow - the two of them were just starting to get themselves sorted out, or so Lupin had thought. But the man had clearly had some sort of a breakdown - he hadn't been ready to resume teaching. Hardly surprising, after the run-ins he'd had with You-Know-Who. Enough to turn anyone rabid. No one had expected him to stay away for so long though - nearly 18 months! That's one hell of a sabbatical. He was damned lucky that Dumbledore had kept his job open. Goodness knows how the kids had scraped through Potions lessons with that succession of supply teachers, and with himself, Sprout and Poppy helping out when necessary. Why, even Dumbledore had taken a few classes! Was it pure coincidence that Snape had felt fit enough to return to Hogwarts at the beginning of this school year, _only now that Harry had left_? Was it simply that the man could not combine his dual role as Professor and parent?

"It seemed such a shame - the three of you had always been so close. Right from the first year." Perhaps Hermione could talk about it, now that it was all over.

"Yes, well… Look on the bright side, Remus - it gave me more time for studying. How do you think I got those results?" She hedged round the subject. "I tried to make it up with Harry a few times when we were at school, you know, but he wouldn't have it. He blamed me for…"

"For what?"

"Oh, it doesn't matter. It's all in the past. Ancient history." Hermione smiled so engagingly that Remus almost believed her. "Do you know what they're up to these days, Harry and Ron?"

"Actually, I do. They've both been out in Romania helping Charlie with his dragons. Molly got herself into a fearful state about it - she was convinced that they were going to get themselves gored or frizzled, but Arthur says they've had a right old time. Done them both good, I should imagine. Neither of them was ready to settle down to a proper job straight after NEWTs. Harry did get a place on the Auror training scheme - you knew that, didn't you- but he's deferred it for a year. I don't know whether he'll take it up or not. He doesn't seem to know what he wants to do with his life. And Ron… well, who would employ Ron, eh?"

"I always thought Ron should do something working with children," mused Hermione. "You should have seen him when we had to look after that Dranda Bear cub. He was a natural."

"Yes, but people can surprise you. Look at you! Whoever would have thought that you would have turned down a Scholarship to Cadwallader-Clagg! You shocked us all there, Hermione."

"Did I? Well, I wanted to do something in the _real_ world for a change."

That was a plausible enough story. It had served her well so far, and it was, partly, true. "Academics will keep - I can always go back if things don't work out with the job. But so far, it's been incredible - I've learned so much; it's been such an eye-opener.

"I mean, who'd have thought that I'd ever end up going to Timbuktu? Or 'Tombouctou' - that's what the Tuaregs call it. You know, you grow up hearing the name, and it's just like short-hand for 'the middle of nowhere', or some fantasy city like Atlantis; and then you actually go there, and it's a real place after all. And do you know what? It was a complete let down: it's just this nothingy, nondescript town on the edge of the desert: just a load of sprawling, flat-roofed buildings and a lot of sand - everywhere sand. Timbuktu's got to be the sandiest place in the world. I had this sandwich there, and it was just mouthfuls of beige grit. Ugh, I can still taste it."

She shook her head with a little shudder; made a face.

"Hey, Remus! Talking of food, does Florean do cakes or anything? I'd die for something sticky and creamy and totally self-indulgent!"

"Don't tell me - you've been eating nothing but grubs and beetles for the past five months!"

"Just the once - and that was only to be polite." Hermione paled, remembering the wriggling, black legs and that awful, desiccated crunching…

"No, the diet was pretty bland: mainly rice, cassava roots, tamarind fruits - that sort of stuff. Palm oil with everything. It'll just be so nice to have meals that aren't all made of manioc or sorghum!"

Despite the heat of the room, Hermione suddenly gave a little shiver.

"What's up?" Remus sensed a change in her.

"Oh, nothing. Got one of those 'someone's walking over my grave' feelings. You know, those little chills down your spine? In Guinea they say it's 'the _irã_ caressing your neck' - the_ irã_ are like evil spirits. It's supposed to be a presentiment of doom. Do you get the feeling we're being watched?"

Lupin observed her kindly, then patted her on the hand.

"Hermione, you definitely need cake…"

X X X

"Had you heard that Harry was out in your neck of the woods for a while? I don't suppose you bumped into him, did you? Small world, eh? When was it now? Let me see - round about the beginning of August, I'd say - not long after the end of term. Harry spent most of the summer with Snape, you know, and they went out to some snake sanctuary or other… I'm sure Severus said it was in Burkina Faso - that's not a million miles from where you were, is it?"

Lupin wiped a stray blob of jam from his chin with the back of his hand, unaware of the affect his words were having on Hermione.

"Really? Wouldn't that have been a coincidence?" She laughed, a little too brightly, and drained her tea cup, her mouth unaccountably dry. "No, we didn't meet up. Africa's a big place. Huge. The _distances_ I've Apparated… I wouldn't have believed it possible. So, er, you've seen Professor Snape, have you Remus? Is he teaching again then?"

She slipped the question in casually, interested in spite of herself, in spite of those resolutions…

Her last terms at Hogwarts had passed in an agony of not knowing… Snape had effectively cut himself off from the school - no one knew why - and had been, ostensibly, engaged in advanced Potions research, travelling extensively to obtain new and rare ingredients, and spending weeks in his private laboratory experimenting with formulae. That was as much as Hermione had been able to glean from all her sources. Dumbledore was infuriatingly noncommittal on the subject of Snape, and Harry, after that initial row, had refused to have anything to do with her. She had thought it would blow over after a few weeks, but it didn't: too many hurtful things had been said; Harry couldn't un-say them, and Hermione still felt she was the injured party. It was upsetting how many of the other students had followed Harry's lead in ostracising her, even without knowing the reason. Surely Harry hadn't given them the reason? Hermione's NEWTs years had been lonely ones. Uninterrupted study had become a defiant substitute for a social life - her refuge and her salvation.

"Snape? He, um, came back in September - for the new school year. Just in time to panic another set of First Years with his 'infusions of Wormwood'! As good a time as any, I suppose. He seems pretty much back on form too - not as, er, _tense_, if you know what I mean; keeps himself to himself, of course, but then he always did… Though, come to think of it, Malfoy does help him out in the lab from time to time. When he's got nothing better to do."

"Malfoy? You don't mean _Draco_? You're joking! Hasn't he got a job to go to?" Hermione asked, astonished.

"Private income. Why demean himself with working?" said Remus, not without a shade of rancour.

"Crumbs - I always knew Draco was a teacher's pet, but I thought it was a Slytherin thing. Why on earth would he want to help with Potions?"

Hermione's mind skipped back to the NEWTs Potions classes. Had she really been so self-absorbed, so steeped in her own studies, that she had failed to notice in Malfoy a budding, _genuine_ interest in the subject? No, surely not. He had spent more time taking the piss out of Madam Pomfrey's 'health and safety' regulations, or perfecting his low-legged imitation of Professor Sprout's waddling gait, or sabotaging Harry's cauldron, than practising potions. Oh, he'd been competent - but that was because he was clever, not _keen_. The scenario of Draco with Snape seemed most unlikely.

Lupin's uncomfortable expression reminded her of Hagrid when he had just let slip something he shouldn't.

"Remus?"

He had picked up the menu and was perusing it avidly, as though a _Magic Melting Tutti-Fruiti Triple Coupe Surprise _had suddenly become irresistible.

"Remus?" she repeated sternly. He peered back at her with a sheepish grin - quite an achievement for a werewolf.

"I honestly don't know, Hermione. I assume it's something to do with that Azkaban business," he answered.

"When Draco shopped Snape for poisoning the Dursleys? _Allegedly_. What's that got to do with potions? Is it a penance? A lifelong Detention, or what?" Hermione still didn't quite buy it.

"No, the other Azkaban thing - " Lupin bit his lip, furious with himself for not simply agreeing with the girl's suggested explanation and leaving it at that. "Oh, what the heck! It's water under the bridge now. It can't hurt if I tell you - though, at the time, Professor Dumbledore didn't want the students to hear about it, in case anyone gave Draco a hard time…"

Hermione feigned shock.

"Remus! As if we would!"

"I don't know all the details myself - you try getting information out of Snape- but I do know that Malfoy got himself mixed up in a Death Eater plot to rescue Lucius from Azkaban. And Snape got him out, just in the nick of time…"

"Who? Lucius?" _Whose side was Snape on now?_

"No, _Draco_! Snape dragged him back to school. It was just before he disappeared off on his blessed 'Potions Pilgrimage'. No one knows what went on between them, but Snape was in no hurry to return to Hogwarts, was he? It's alright for some! What I wouldn't do for an eighteen month holiday! Anyway, he's back now - and just as moody and difficult as ever. I will say one thing for the bloke though - it's a relief to have him brewing my Wolfsbane again. No disrespect to Harry - I know he did his best - but no one can make that Potion quite like Severus. That man's got a magic touch…"

"And he and Harry…?" Hermione prompted, curiosity getting the better of her, wishing she could get the phrase 'magic touch' out of her mind.

"Who knows? As I said, they were together all summer and survived… They must have come to some understanding. I know they see each other from time to time, but they certainly don't live in each other's pockets. I'd even stick my neck out and go as far as to say they're actually quite fond of one another, but they just rub each other up the wrong way. I think it's a case of 'agreeing to differ'…"

That sounded about right. The volatile combination of Snape and Harry was stable only in small doses.

"I may have missed them in Africa, but I bumped into him just now in _Flourish and Blotts_ - Snape, that is." Hermione found herself volunteering the information. For some reason, she needed to tell Remus; she wanted to talk about Snape, to keep him in the conversation.

"In the Dark Art's section, I bet! The bugger's still after my job!" said Remus.

They were still laughing, sharing the joke, when a shadow fell across the table.

"Talk of the devil!" exclaimed Lupin.

X X X

The tall, formidable figure of Severus Snape had been standing outside _Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour_ for a good ten minutes. The colourful awning provided little in the way of real shelter, and he hunched his shoulders against the inconsiderate breeze, which threw flurries of snow at his back and chilled him right through the folds of his winter cloak. Dithering on a threshold was alien to his very nature, but, on this occasion, he had to admit that he was in two minds whether or not to enter.

Through the window he could see right into the cheerful heart of the bustling café, and he had a clear, uninterrupted view of the round table at the rear of the shop. He observed the happy couple at the table - from an outsider's viewpoint they certainly _looked_ like a couple - with an air of jaundiced disapproval. Hermione and Lupin were sitting facing each other, absorbed in one another, relaxed and smiling, chatting as they sipped their tea, laughing together… a joyful, friendly reunion. From where Snape was standing, it looked _more_ than friendly - it was too snug, too intimate.

Now the werewolf was pawing Hermione's hand - Snape bristled - now he was waving Florean over, selecting some sickly monstrosity from the cake trolley, guzzling it like some ravening Grendel, smearing his bestial face with jam… Now they were deep in conversation, their heads almost touching…

Snape shivered, the cosy scene within leaving him colder than the snow outside. He felt a familiar pang of resentment against Lupin - the wolf was a tainted, inefficient, soft-centred, intellectual feather-weight; what was it about his gauche bonhomie that made him so popular with the students? It was galling enough that Lupin had struck up that effortless, easy rapport with Harry… but now…

Swatting jealously back to its rightful place in the bowels of contempt, Snape had braced himself and pushed open the door. The hot, sweet, tea and coffee and sundae-scented air hit him like a blast from a kiln.

X X X

"Professor!"

"Hello there, Snape! This is a turn up! Take a pew."

His arrival had taken them by surprise, to say the least. Lupin began to shuffle his chair round to make space for another seat, but Snape brusquely forestalled him.

"I have no desire to join your little _tête à tête_. I have merely come to convey a message to Miss Granger. Harry will be returning for several days over Christmas. He is due to arrive tomorrow morning. I think it likely, Miss Granger, that he will wish to see you. You may Floo directly to the Cottage."

With a cursory nod, Snape muttered a formal farewell: "Miss Granger. Lupin." and swept out of the café.

Nonplussed, Hermione and Lupin stared at each other.

"Was that an _invitation_?" Hermione asked.

**End of Chapter. **

Another A/N: Under normal circumstances I feel that Snape would probably have stayed either to face the music, or to make Hermione's life hell for the next two years (or both?). However, after reducing him to a maudlin mess in POST MORTEM, I thought I could get away with him behaving slightly OoC and leaving Hogwarts (otherwise this story would have got hellishly long).

**Next chapter: SNAPE : DRACO. How did Snape save Draco?**


	5. Snape : Draco

**LOST PERSPECTIVE 5**

**READ MY MIND**

**By Bellegeste**

**Author's note: **

**To Avery: Good point about Hermione and the French. There is a brief explanation in the final chapter of LP4, when I'm talking about Hermione's infatuation for Snape. _"Ever since Luna had mentioned the book (_i.e. Lily's book of French poetry_,) Hermione had secretly been using _**_'Linguascio'_**_ and practising her French."_ I do refer to this again later on in this story when Hermione is talking to Snape. I just figured that it might be the kind of intellectual approach that Hermione might take if she wanted to feel closer to Snape. (I started learning Russian once, for the sake of a misguided relationship. Didn't last long though! The Russian or the relationship.) ****The French thing is relevant also in that it influenced the part of Africa that Hermione went to. I do explain later, but I'll think about putting an earlier reference in, to make it clearer.**

**When I wrote the chapter in Post Mortem where Draco visits Snape and asks him to rescue Lucius, I thought 'Oh no, is this turning into an Azkaban fic?' I have never felt the need to write a full-on Azkaban story, and have never read one (any recs for good ones?). So this chapter isn't intended to be that - which is why I don't go into huge detail about the prison itself. It is just an excuse for getting Snape and Draco talking (spot the contrived device!)**

**I'm interested in the way Snape finds it easier to talk to Draco than he does to Harry. Must be a Slytherin thing. **

**And, as you may have noticed, in all my fics Snape has to get injured at some point…**

**This is a very long chapter; it didn't break naturally, so I kept it as one.**

**Chapter 5 : SNAPE : DRACO**

November 1996

Azkaban

It could hardly be described as a cave, more an enlarged fissure in the rock, but it would do. The important thing was the entrance was not visible from the path, which curved sharply to the right, round the projecting granite crag. By the time the Death Eaters realised that Draco was missing, he would be long gone. The shelter of the cave would buy Snape the few extra seconds he needed to subdue the boy before they Apparated to safety. He was not expecting him to put up much resistance.

Snape had been tailing the group of Death Eaters for over a day now. It had been relatively straightforward, a serendipitous mix of calculated guesswork and luck, to track them to their rendezvous at Macnair's Scottish 'bothy': a fisherman's cottage set in a secluded cove, with views out over the Pentland Firth and the icy, wild waters of the North Sea. It was one of a number of properties left unused and abandoned since the summer's debacle in the Ministry, but its coastal location made it a particularly convenient launch pad for the journey north to the islands. Snape had considered it himself, in his hypothetical calculations for the proposed breakout.

By the time Snape arrived, later that evening, a group of at least eleven Death Eaters had already assembled. He settled himself unseen, at a safe distance, in the lee of an upturned skiff, to watch and wait. At intervals throughout the long night, hooded figures materialised out of the darkness and slipped anonymously into the peeling, weather-beaten building. By dawn their numbers had swelled to seventeen. There was no sign, however, of Voldemort.

Snape edged closer to the shack, flattening himself against the wall, and clasping his cloak around him as the freezing wind snatched and dragged at the material. It was pitiful - they hadn't even 'warded' the hut for sound: he could hear every word. No wonder they'd wanted his help - he was dealing with a bunch of amateurs! Macnair was playing host; his Gaelic twang sounded out above the rest:

"Aye, aye, dinna fash yerself. Pass yer tassie, man - get a drop of the auld 'athole brose' inside of ye. Or mebbe a wee dram? Uisge beatha's what ye need to warm the cockles on a clarty night like this. Once ye be up on Eilean Eas you'll be wishin' yer'd taken more'n a tot o' whusky… can I tempt ye wi' a bannock?" _(ed. Footnotes at end.)_

Snape sniffed in disgust. What did they think this was, a ceilidh? But he had heard enough; he now knew the point from which they planned to launch their assault on Azkaban.

Snape's initial hope had been to snatch Draco from the group before they left the mainland, but he quickly realised that this would not be possible. There were too many of them, and Draco was never alone. With almost twenty men crowded into the croft, no one was alone. They were sitting ducks, thought Snape in frustration. If only Draco were not with them… What price the life of a single schoolboy, when weighed against the chance of eradicating an entire cell of Death Eaters? He deplored Ministerial policy which would only authorise the deployment of resources to defend the prison itself, rather than stage a pre-emptive strike on its would-be attackers. If only the Malfoy boy had not been there, the Order might have been able to blitz the place… But, in any case, Dumbledore had felt that an unprovoked assault on a supposed off-season 'sea-angling party', had it failed, would have been impossible to justify. The headmaster was getting too cautious in his old age, Snape decided.

As far as students went, Snape quite liked Draco. He was a quick learner (when he deigned to listen), confident (to the point of arrogance), and with a sharp wit - more than once Snape had had to suppress an appreciative smirk as one or another of his fellow students (Harry, more often than not) became the next cringing victim of Malfoy's barbed humour. But he was, at the end of the day, just a student.

More than once Snape had questioned the logic of risking his own life to save that of a boy who meant little to him, who would, in all probability, be taking the Dark Mark himself within the next couple of years. Draco would, by definition, become the 'enemy'. Why save him now? Why bother? The boy was nothing, a nobody, irrelevant, incidental, expendable.

Snape suspected that his desire to rescue him had more than a little to do with Harry. There but for the grace of Merlin… In his mind the two boys were in some respects interchangeable: he saw Draco in danger; he envisaged Harry in the same situation. As a teacher, Snape would never consciously have allowed any of his pupils to suffer, on principle, but there was more to it now than professionalism. By a process of transference, the protectiveness he felt towards Harry had begun to extend towards the other children.

Paternalism was not a welcome addition to Snape's emotional array. At least, not under the present circumstances. It rendered him exploitable. It was precisely this softening of objectivity, this personal involvement, that he had shied away from all these years. From the first moment he had heard of Lily's pregnancy and assessed the odds on the child being his, he had instinctively known that denial was the safest course. He had known several Death Eaters whose loyalty was bought for the price of their family's safety. They were vulnerable. And now he was in the same position, with respect to Harry and, by identification, to Draco, and… others…

Snape could not pretend that his motive for extricating Draco was more than partially altruistic. Of course, he had no desire to see the boy penalised by the Ministry, which he surely would be, were he caught. And, there again, once he was gone, the defenders would have a clearer field of operations… But it was more than that: there was the thrill of seeing live action again. It had been so long since Snape had had an opportunity to pit his wits directly against the Dark Lord. Sneaking around spying and information gathering didn't give the same adrenalin rush of pure excitement, of risk and danger. Even last summer when his colleagues in the Order had been fighting it out in the Ministry, Snape had been back at Hogwarts, checking for Harry in the Forbidden Forest. And after the sessions in the 'cellar', Snape had his own score to settle…

The conversation with Dumbledore had reinforced his resolve to take a break from teaching. Over the last few weeks he had felt lost, stale, ineffectual and so totally depressed with his existence that he didn't think anything would rouse him from the trough of apathy - until now. This mission made him feel vital and alive: in saving Draco, he was also saving himself.

Snape could well imagine that taking part in this raid might be regarded as an initiation for Draco, a rite of passage; that the boy might be under considerable pressure to prove himself. In practical terms he could not see that the presence of an untrained teenager would be anything but a liability - he wasn't even sure that the kid knew how to Apparate yet. Harry may have learned, in secret, but Snape doubted that Draco had the drive or tenacity to acquire the necessary skills without professional help.

Was he there then as a bargaining tool- a potential hostage, maybe; living currency to be bartered in a crisis in exchange for leniency or freedom?

A mile out to sea, the craggy outcrop of bare rock that housed the fortress prison of Azkaban, was just visible through the mist. Its dark, featureless mass gave no indication of the horrors within its walls; it was a single, weathered stone marking a communal grave on the site of a massacre.

Snape did not know how the Death Eaters intended to cross to the island and, frankly, he did not care. He didn't believe they could do it. He had gone over the details in his mind, time and time again, with the same result: the fortress was impregnable. With the newly intensified security and fortifications, any assault on Azkaban was doomed to failure. Even the non-Apparation zone would by now have been extended so that it encompassed the rocky shore of the headland.

In Snape's estimation, there was only one place where it would be worth _attempting_ to breach the perimeter wards. Issuing from a fault-line in the stone stack, some fifty feet up the sheer cliff face, a wall of water fell in a cascading, white torrent, meeting the jagged rocks below in a crashing embrace of salt and spray. No defensive spell could retain cohesion amidst that perpetual flow, the ever-shifting surge of surf. Behind the boiling curtain of water would be a lacuna, untouched by the magic: a way through the outer wards. Snape permitted himself a sardonic smile, visualising his former associates and their undignified, wet, vertical, drop through the buffeting, ice-cold sluice. Just co-ordinating the 'dry' and 'anti-gravity' charms would be an achievement.

In the sombre, winter half-light, Snape heard them before he could see them. The biting wind had dropped and the crunch of their boots on the stony pathway, the scrape of a missed step, carried dully in the heavy air. They were covering the last few hundred yards on foot, unsure of where the Apparation barrier began. As the narrow track wound upwards, they came within sight: a dark procession of slowly moving, cloaked shapes, their wands held aloft to light their treacherous way, like a Silent Order of monks, votive candles flickering, proceeding to Matins.

Snape melted into the fissure, counting the bodies, while the column toiled past. Fourteen… fifteen… Draco had been bringing up the rear, as Snape had anticipated - evidently they had not considered the possibility of being ambushed from behind - but now Snape noticed that the fat accountant, Goyle, had dropped back. Fifteen years in a sedentary, Ministerial sinecure was hardly the best training for terrorist activity, and the pen-pusher had grown portly and unfit, ill-equipped for a mountain hike. Damn! Would the man notice if Draco were no longer in front of him? But rather than keeping an eye on the boy, Goyle's attention was focussed on his plodding feet; his wand hung limply in his hand, illuminating nothing beyond the next tired step.

Rather than run the risk of being heard casting a spell, Snape had opted for the old-fashioned approach – manually grabbing the boy as he went by. As Draco, unsuspecting, drew level with the fissure, a black arm slid round his neck, a hand clamped over his mouth and a sinister, vaguely familiar voice hissed in his ear,

"Quiet!"

The boy was yanked sharply sideways, and the rock-face swallowed him into darkness. Goyle trudged on oblivious, convinced that he was developing a nasty blister on his left heel.

Snape had not expected Draco to struggle so much. How could he Apparate if the boy was thrashing around? It didn't help that his arm was still weak from the effects of the snake bite. He needed a firm grip if they were to Apparate jointly away from the immediate vicinity of the path - it wouldn't work if he had to concentrate on keeping the kid from kicking and yelling at the same time.

"Draco, be quiet!" he hissed, and slapped the near hysterical boy sharply round the face. There was no time for explanations. They had to get away instantly before the Death Eaters realised that one of their number had disappeared. In the moment of stunned shock that followed, Snape seized Draco, there was a 'pop' and the two of them vanished. Snape did not relax his grip until he felt his feet touch down on rough grass. He allowed himself a moment of self-congratulation that the plan had worked so smoothly.

In that split-second, as Draco sensed the wiry muscles loosen their hold, the boy dropped to the ground and rolled away, whipping out his wand and at the same time screaming,

"_Stupefy! Incarcerous! Impedimenta! Expelliarmus!"_

Ropes were already snaking round Snape's wrists and ankles as the stunning spell knocked him off his feet and hurled him backwards. Unable to break his fall, he crashed to the floor, his head hitting the frozen ground with an audible crack. He didn't get up.

Draco stayed down, wand shakily pointing at the inert figure, panting away the desperation that had possessed him. After a minute, when the man didn't move, Draco clambered to his feet, and nudged Snape's leg with his shoe.

"Get up!" There was still no response.

"OK, you bastard. _Finite Incantatem_, but I'm warning you, I've got you covered!" Draco tried to sound an awful lot more confident than he felt. Even without the binding ropes, the man lay motionless, unconscious. Feeling bolder, Draco shoved his assailant with his foot, rolled him over…

"Professor? Oh, snake-shit! Professor!" Finally recognising Snape, Draco felt a strobe of panic blinding his brain, sending his thought processes into a bleached, eerie, slow-motion spin. He looked around him wildly for help, half hoping that Dumbledore or Madam Pomfrey would materialise on cue to sort everything out. There was nothing there but bleak, windswept emptiness, a flattened expanse of scrubby heather and rocks - fading into the grey distance, a line of standing stones, looming out of the swirling mist. Draco had no idea where he was. There was no sign of the path or the steep escarpment that met the shore in those terrifying cliffs; no sign of the Death Eaters either.

"Professor Snape? Wake up! _Enervate_!" Draco tried the waking spell, not expecting it to work. It was the physical impact of Snape's skull hitting the rock-hard earth that had knocked him out, not magic.

"Oh, no. Wake up, can't you? Oh, for Merlin's sake! Oh, fuck it! Come on, Sir, wake up!" Draco tried shaking him and patting him round the face, but he really had no idea what to do. Nothing seemed to help. In the end he squatted down to wait, hugging his knees, and wondering how the hell he was going to explain to Dumbledore that he had violently assaulted his Potions master. It was one thing plotting to get the man arrested by a third party; it was a completely different matter to have him lying unconscious at his feet.

In many ways, it was a relief to have got away from the Death Eaters. Some were his father's friends, and Draco knew a couple of them quite well, as individuals. But, en masse, they became alarming. There was a harsh group dynamic that seemed to supplant any finer feeling, and Draco wasn't sure how far he could trust them. They had taken him from Hogwarts directly to the croft, but they hadn't told him where they were going, or what the plan was. They'd been too busy, too involved in last-minute briefings and instructions, to answer Draco's questions; they greeted each new, hooded arrival at the shack with hushed urgency, sweeping him into a huddle of secret intrigue from which Draco was openly excluded. It rapidly became clear to Draco that, if he played any part in his father's rescue, it would be as a 'spare part' and not the hero.

It was several minutes before Snape regained consciousness. His eyes flickered open, closed again; he blinked, tried to focus, groaned; gingerly touched the back of his head; felt blood.

"I didn't know it was you, Sir. Honest, I didn't. I wouldn't have… I thought you were attacking me. It was too dark. I didn't realise…" Draco blurted a string of excuses.

"Shut up, Malfoy."

"But you grabbed me, Sir! How was I supposed to know? If someone gets you round the neck in the dark and Apparates you into the middle of fuck knows where, what are you supposed to do? Wait for them to cut your throat? I was protecting myself, Sir!"

"Yes, alright, Malfoy. Just shut up, will you?" Snape couldn't listen to the boy's ranting self-defence. His head was splitting; his vision exploding into star-bursts of pain.

"You could have been a Death Eater or anybody! They might have been kidnapping me! For all I knew they might have been going to throw me off the cliff! You could have said something! Grabbing my throat! You're jolly lucky I didn't use _Crucio_ - I could have, you know…"

"You're in the right place for it! Save the Ministry the trouble of sending you to prison." Snape was in no mood for idle threats.

"But you slapped my face!" Draco was petulant.

"Dragon's blood! Can't you be quiet? What the hell did you think you were doing? You almost blew my head off, you stupid boy," Snape snapped. Wincing, he pushed himself up onto an elbow, then stopped while drunken shadows careened around him, lunging pitchforks into his brain, lurching in and out of focus, blurring and finally coalescing into the overcast pewter pall of the northern sky. He felt sick. He didn't know whether to hold his head or his stomach.

"We should get out of here," said Draco, anxiously. "They might be following us. I don't think I want to stay with them. I'd rather take my chances with you. If you'd just said who you were…"

"You brainless idiot! Didn't you recognise my _voice_?" Snape had underestimated the extent of Malfoy's panic; it had not occurred to him that the boy wouldn't realise who he was.

"It all happened so fast…" Malfoy whined. "Where are we, anyway, Sir? Shouldn't we go? Get away from here, in case they… Can't you hurry up?"

Draco had automatically assumed that once Snape was conscious he'd be fine.

Snape tried to stand up, but was immediately engulfed by billowing waves of nausea. He sank down onto his knees.

"Just give me a minute, will you?"

x x x

Draco paced nervously, peering about him into the gloom, straining his eyes for any sign of movement, any sound, tense as an unbroken brumby, ready to bolt. He circled the stunned professor impatiently. How had he got himself into this mess? Stuck on a mountain, with Snape being totally pathetic - hell, the man was such a loser. Who'd have thought it? Draco would have expected him to be tougher than that. Wasn't he a wizard? What's he doing here anyway? Last time Draco had seen Snape, he'd been at the Cottage. Come to think of it, the man had behaved like a total head case there too. Perhaps he really had lost his powers after all? Perhaps the rumours were true. _I was right to tell the Dark Lord that Snape had cracked… _Draco comforted himself with the thought until it occurred to him that, under the present circumstances, it would be preferable for Snape to be sane and with powers intact.

"Draco, listen to me. This is important." Snape's speech was slightly slurred. "Draco, I think I have concussion. For a short while I shall be unable to do magic or Apparate."

"What? Oh that's great! You mean we can't get away? Short while? What the hell does that mean? How long?" Draco's voice rang with disappointment and frustration, annoyance too. "Call yourself a wizard? That was just a bang on the head - aren't real wizards supposed to 'bounce'? When was the last time you heard of a wizard with concussion? Huh!"

"That's **enough**, Malfoy! Show some respect! It is unusual, I'll admit, but it is the only way I can account for… …for the way I'm feeling. My defence reflex must have busy at the time… dealing with the four simultaneous curses you so kindly cast on me…

"Now, stop whingeing, boy, and listen! I need you to perform a Healing Spell."

Draco felt an ominous sinking sensation in his middle.

"OK, Sir," he said, dubiously. "What is it?"

"What's what?"

"The Healing Spell. What is it? How does it go?"

"Don't you _know_?" barked Snape, irritably.

"Me, Sir? What do you think I am, a bloody Mediwitch? How the hell am I supposed to know a Healing Spell for concussion?"

"Because it's on the syllabus that Pomfrey's been revising with you for the past week!" Snape moaned in exasperation, holding his head in his hands, rocking slightly as the nausea swept through him again.

"Fine. I must have missed that class," said Draco airily, getting his wand out and twirling it. "OK, I'll do it for you, Sir- just tell me the incantation."

"I can't remember it!" snapped Snape, anger cloaking his shame. "That's one of the symptoms - memory loss. For once in your life, Draco, concentrate! If we can't Apparate out of here, it'll be a long walk, and I'm not sure either of us would make it. Don't you _ever_ pay attention in class?"

Draco thought hard. Now Snape mentioned it, he did remember The Pom drivelling on about wiping up spilled potions because you might slip and hit your head and… yes, she _had_ referred to concussion! He felt proud of himself. But she'd mentioned a lot of other stuff too - and it was all so trite and safety conscious: _this_ is risky; _that_ is dangerous; _this_ is a potential hazard; _that_ would be deleterious to health - blah, blah! No wonder he'd switched off. She'd said… something about Arnica and Plimpy scales…? No, it was gone. What he did recall though was that he'd had a brilliant idea that day for putting an _Intensified Repulsio Hex_ on Potter's cauldron, so that any ingredients he added would instantly leap out again…

"Sorry, Sir," he mumbled.

"You'd better start paying attention now," said Snape grimly. "Don't worry about the Death Eaters - you are hardly their top priority at the moment. Face it, Malfoy, you're an encumbrance. They're probably glad to be rid of you…"

_Charming!_ thought Draco, even though he knew, deep down, that Snape was right. He would only have been in the way.

"Malfoy - " Snape continued. His voice was sounding very strange. "It is possible that I may lose consciousness again. In that event… it will be up to you… Oh, for Merlin's sake, boy!" He had seen the white panic returning to Draco's eyes. "You are equipped to cope, Draco. You have your wand; you already know the basic survival spells: Modified _Protego_ and _Impervius_ for shelter; _Incendio_, obviously; and _Point Me_. If the worst comes to the worst and you're lost, head south. I do not wish to be alarmist, but you should be prepared. Now, shut up and let me rest for a while." He sank back shakily to the ground, his eyelids closing.

"**NO**!" cried Draco, a memory flashing a warning light in his mind. "No, Sir, you mustn't! Madam Pomfrey said that people with untreated concussion can lapse into a coma. Or something. Your brain'll swell up until it trickles out of your ears!"

"Malfoy!" Snape rebuked him with another moan. "Your imperfect grasp of medical fact… is surpassed… only by your perverse compulsion… to sensationalise the truth."

"No, I'm serious, Sir. You've got to stay awake. Talk to me! That's it - that's what Pomfrey said - you've got to keep talking…"

"Talk? To you? What leads you to believe, for one moment, that I would have the remotest inclination to talk to you, boy? Do you think I'm mad? I may be concussed, Malfoy, but I'm not insane. I'm just tired. Leave me alone." Up until this point, Snape had been perfectly coherent, but now he felt himself starting to drift… it was an effort to keep his eyes open.

"Let's talk about Potions, shall we?" suggested Draco, frantically. "Or about, er, snakes, Sir? Or that horrible lizard thing you've got at your Cottage. Harry says it drinks snot… Sir?" Draco searched desperately for any topic capable of holding Snape's waning concentration. "Talk to me about Harry!"

"Harry?" There was a flicker of interest.

"Yes, Sir - it must be bizarre, suddenly finding that Potter, of all people, is your son. Isn't it, Sir? Isn't it weird?"

"I have a son. Harry is my son. I always wanted a son," Snape murmured faintly.

Draco was alarmed; Snape's confusion scared him. He knelt next to the Professor and shook him by the shoulders.

"Try to focus, Sir. Tell me about Harry. Why do you hate him?"

Draco was taking a risk here, being deliberately provocative: he would never normally have dared to ask this to his face. But the gamble paid off: Snape slid back towards consciousness.

"Hate? Who says I hate Harry?"

_Well, **he** does, actually. Everybody does. It's a well-known fact._

"Does _your_ father hate you, Draco? No. Do you hate him?"

"Sometimes. Well, not really, Sir. No, Sir."

"No. Do you _l_-… - _like_ him?" Snape had paused before one 'L' word and substituted another.

"Whew! I don't know, Sir." Draco hadn't expected this kind of talk.

"You don't know?" Snape's voice had faded again to a whisper. "You see, Draco, what you feel for your father is… a combination of… duty, obligation, loyalty, familiarity, admiration, affection..." He listed the attributes like so many toxic chemicals. "Relationships are largely a matter of habit. Harry and I - we have not had that luxury. We have been thrown together in exceptional circumstances.."

_That's one way to describe it!_

"I get why Harry might hate you - " Draco declared boldly. The cautious, expedient deference he had always felt towards Snape at school seemed to have been left behind within the bounds of Hogwarts.

"Indeed. Do enlighten me with your insights, Malfoy."

_Yeah - talk about 'just cause'… You bang up his mother - one of the perks, is it, of being a Death Eater- then you ignore Harry's very existence; and when you finally get the chance to do something about it, you make his life hell… Not that he didn't deserve half of it, mind! But what kid would want you for a father…?_ Draco almost said it out loud, but he knew that would be dangerously over-stepping the mark.

"Oh, nothing, Sir. I'm sorry."

"Too damn right you're sorry! Watch your tongue! Why concern yourself with Harry anyway? The two of you are not friends." Suspicion glinted in Snape's dimmed eyes. "Malfoy, if you are taking advantage of this situation to procure ammunition for use in your rivalry against my son…"

"I'm not, Sir. I'm just _talking_!"

"I don't need to talk. I need to sleep. Go away and do something useful. Collect firewood; try to assess our location. Just leave me alone."

x x x

A low rumbling volley carried its ominous tidings through the slate grey dawn, making Draco jump. Was that an explosion? …gunfire?

"They're shooting! Professor! Sir! Wake up!"

"I'm not deaf, Draco." Snape was already listening. "Shooting? Wizards don't use guns. Don't be ridiculous! That sounds more like a storm."

"Ohhh." Malfoy whimpered, his gaze travelling fearfully skywards. He'd hated storms ever since he was little - he'd been mucking about on his dad's broomstick one day, practising on the quiet, when the rain began: he didn't think anything of it at first, until the lightning bolt that virtually blasted him out of the sky…

"Astraphobic! That's all we need!" Snape muttered, observing Draco flinch as the next roll of thunder growled up the mountainside. "Don't bother to deny it, Draco, I can see you quaking from here."

"Deny what? I didn't do anything, Sir."

"If you're so anxious to talk, you could at least try to _listen_. You're afraid of thunder and lightning, aren't you?"

"No I'm not!" Draco _did_ deny it, vehemently.

"If you say so." Snape leaned back against the rock, his eyes closed. The nausea was more manageable that way, if he kept his head still, if he didn't have to focus on the agitated boy, who would insist on circling him like a hungry vulture.

"Oh, for Merlin's sake, Malfoy, sit down! I'm not carrion yet!"

"_What_, Sir?" _The man's coming out with gibberish, thought Draco. Better keep him talking…_

"When Harry went through that Archway thing…" he began, thinking this could well be a fruitful subject, but Snape interrupted him:

"Perhaps it's time we talked about **you**, Malfoy."

Draco gulped, his bravado wavering as the tables were turned.

"Me, Sir?"

"Would you, perchance, care to explain, Draco - while you are in this _conversational_ frame of mind - how you came to be my son's accomplice in his misguided quest for 'revenge', eh? Or, indeed, why you then saw fit to take matters into your own hands, and engineer my arrest? Hmm? Quite the young arbiter of justice! What have you got to say for yourself, boy? Not so chatty now, are we?"

Draco stared at his scuffed shoes, and chewed his lower lip, trying to piece together a defence. It was unfair - Snape's reasoning wasn't as blunted as he'd thought. He felt that Snape had tricked him.

"My father…" he faltered.

"…is a criminal. It's time you faced up to the facts. He's in Azkaban because he broke the law and he got caught - and this time he couldn't plead the excuse that he was under _Imperius_." Snape put it bluntly.

"It wasn't an excuse!" Draco protested. For the second time that day he pulled his wand on Snape, and shouted accusingly:

"It's _your_ fault he's in prison now. You're a traitor. You betrayed him. He wouldn't have been caught if it wasn't for you. You've always had it in for him. It should be you in there, not him. _You_ didn't even have the excuse of _Imperius_, and they let _you_ go free. You bought your own freedom by spying on my father! And then you went and betrayed him again last summer!"

"I wasn't even present at the Battle of the Department of Mysteries," Snape pointed out, with a sigh. He really didn't feel up to arguing with the defiant, distressed teenager. "Put the wand away, Draco. It's not about personal animosity towards Lucius - he was once my friend, after all. Though, recently… But I take issue with his principles and his methods - can you not see the difference?"

"Same bloody difference, as far as I'm concerned," the boy snarled.

Snape was experiencing a disconcerting sense of déjà vu - Malfoy's wounded, hostile attitude reminded him overwhelmingly of Harry.

"Draco, what have I ever done to you?" he asked, more gently.

"Nothing, Sir," the boy mumbled. Damn! That was pretty much the same question Harry had asked him, and he hadn't had a decent answer that time either.

Just then the sky glimmered with lightning, the flash diffusing through the low clouds, quickly followed by another echoing clash. Draco let out an involuntary yelp.

"It's getting closer. The rain'll be here soon," said Snape. He could see that the boy was frozen with fear, hysteria not far away, _genuinely_ phobic.

"Give me a hand up, Draco. I'll see if I can Apparate us out of here before we get drenched. No, the other hand…" he added, protecting his right arm where the snake bite still throbbed.

Malfoy pulled the professor to his feet. As soon as Snape was upright he knew it was a bad idea. The world about him dissolved into a texture-less, tripe and avocado sludge, while underfoot the ground began to pitch and heave. The Potions master swayed, steadying himself against the boy, then cautiously lowered himself back to the floor.

"Too soon."

Draco sat down next to him.

"Thanks for trying, Sir," he said. "I'll do an _Impervius_, shall I? Before we get wet?"

The first, single, portentous, swollen drops were beginning to fall.

Again the lightning was a mere flicker, smothered in gabardine cloud, but this time the thunder crack was immediate, directly overhead, ear-splitting. Without thinking, Draco cowered against Snape, burying his head in his chest and, equally instinctively, Snape put his arm round the trembling shoulders…

Snape was surprised that the boy didn't pull away sooner. It was strangely comforting to have him there, leaning against him. Any human contact was a novelty to Snape. It felt uncomplicated - how different from the maelstrom that churned within him whenever he approached Harry, where every gesture, every touch was primed with a potent emotional charge.

The rain drummed upon the spell, the deluge glancing off the waterproof magic like a torrent of verbal abuse - loud and stinging, but ultimately harmless. Around them the storm swaggered and blustered, hurling its booming expletives to earth. After a while it staggered inland, its coarse threats still reverberating around the mountain. Snape felt the tension slump out of the boy's body.

"Friggin' thunder - freaks me out!" Draco said in a forced, jokey tone, sitting up with a shrug.

"It is an irrational response, Draco, to a relatively benign natural phenomenon. You should try some mesmeric desensitisation techniques; or, possibly, one might _Obliviate_ the event that originally triggered the phobia…"

"Would you do that, Sir, when we get back to Hogwarts? I feel such a pillock…"

He was trying to pinpoint what it was about this conversation that was making him feel uncomfortable, then he realised: Snape was neither bullying nor belittling him. Draco wondered if, by some amazing fluke, his _Stupefy_ had targeted Snape's sadistic cortex…

The Potions master was regarding him with a very strange, serious expression. _Oh heck, he'd better not throw up - that would be too gross…_

"Draco, I shall not be returning with you to Hogwarts."

"Oh. Oh well, later then; when you get back," said Malfoy, thinking he was referring to a short-term arrangement.

"You misunderstand me. I do not intend to return at all. I have tendered my resignation."

Not return? Draco couldn't believe what he was hearing. It was the answer to a prayer. Yet, Hogwarts without Snape would be unimaginable. He was an integral part of the place, just as much as the ancient stone walls, the moving staircases, the draughty corridors and halls. Snape was one of the sharp, bitter ingredients (as were Filch and Mrs Norris, Peeves, the Forbidden Forest, the Whomping Willow…) that added that hint of piquancy to life at Hogwarts. Without him it would be blander - easier for Gryffindors maybe, with fewer detentions, less public humiliation and a major reduction in homework, but definitely blander. Besides, who would be the Head of Slytherin? None of the other staff would want that job. Draco had never imagined he would find himself saying this, but he didn't want Snape to go.

"Why, Sir?"

"I have my reasons."

A rush of guilt seized the student.

"Look, Sir, I know what I said to the Dark Lord, but I didn't mean it. Nobody really thinks that."

"_What_, precisely, did you say?" Snape inquired, coldly. "Out with it boy! Spare me the prevarication," he added as Draco hesitated.

"I told him that you'd lost it, Sir. After I saw you at your house - well, you were pretty out of it… I said you were all washed up, and that he needn't bother about you; that you weren't any threat…"

"Indeed." _That explained the Death Eaters' mistaken assumption that he would not follow up Draco's approach for help._

Draco had heard that tone of 'indeed' several times before, and it was never auspicious. He quailed.

"Do _you_ wish to _discover_ whether or not I still pose a threat?" Snape could still inject an overdose of menace.

"No, Sir."

"Very well. Are you saying that you are in personal contact with the Dark Lord?" This was not a question Draco had been expecting. Snape was side-stepping the issue of his competence.

"Not exactly, Sir. I tell stuff to my mother, or sometimes to my dad's friends - and it sort of gets back to him… But you're not, Sir. Mad, that is. You're OK. Maybe not right this minute, but generally? You don't have to resign."

"I'm afraid I do, Draco. There are circumstances… They need not concern you."

"You've not killed someone?"

"Not recently, no."

There was a tantalising whiff of malpractice in the air, and Draco couldn't resist sniffing it out. He might learn something _useful_. His nose wrinkled in anticipation.

"I can't see why you'd want to resign. Hogwarts is a cushy number for you, isn't it? Were you sacked, Sir? Did you Hex a pupil, or poison a member of staff, or have an argument with Dumbledore? That's it! You've had some massive row with Professor Dumbledore, and he's finally given you the push!"

"I have not! Enough lurid speculation, Malfoy. I have resigned, and that is all you need to know. I intend to devote more time into furthering my research into mithridatic antidotes and cnidoblasts… There has been nothing inappropriate about my behaviour."

An unfortunate turn of phrase. In Malfoy's salacious mind the word 'inappropriate' had distinct connotations of the worst professional misconduct.

"Oh my god!" he drawled in scandalised delight. "You dirty dragon! You've been screwing a student!"

The sentence had barely left his mouth before he felt Snape's hand close around his throat, forcing his head roughly back against the rock.

"That is a **slander**, Malfoy. You will **not** repeat it. Do I make myself clear? It is **not** true," he hissed. "I have never… I would never…"

Snape let his hand drop, and they both sat back, breathing heavily.

Draco's imagination was now speeding through a roll-call of Hogwarts' females: Bulstrode- too ugly. Abbot- too 'boring'. Patil (either of them)- pretty, but snooty. (Would that bother Snape?) Granger- too swotty. Midgeon- too spotty. Lovegood- too batty. Weasley- too young. (But how young was _too young_?) Perks- too pukka. Bones- nice hair…

No, he couldn't guess. How frustrating - this was the juiciest dirt since… well, since the story about Snape raping Harry's mother… _It's always the quiet ones…_

Draco twisted his bruised neck slowly round until he could see Snape's face. The man looked utterly wretched. Watching him, Draco was suddenly ashamed of his initial urge to crow; he felt the dawning of a superficial, manly comradeship, and something akin to sympathy.

"OK, you haven't done anything _yet_, but you **_want_** to! Or you're _involved_, in some way… I'm right, aren't I, Sir?"

Snape did not deny it.

"It is impossible for me to remain at Hogwarts," was all he would say.

_Not while Granger was still a student there. He did not trust himself._

X X X

"That _Impervius_ of yours needs some fine-tuning," grumbled Snape damply, as the moisture started to seep through the magic.

"Are you sure you're up to this, Sir?" Draco was nervous about being Apparated by a wizard whose powers were at a low ebb.

Over the last half hour or so, Snape had felt his strength gradually returning, and the nausea subside.

"Stop griping! We'll soon find out," he retorted, wishing, not for the first time that day, that Malfoy could show a little less self-serving, Slytherin circumspection, and a little more 'grit' - like Harry, he thought again.

They had said no more about Snape's decision to leave Hogwarts. Although Draco's curiosity was consuming him like a flesh-eating virus, he had the sense to shut up. Even he could tell when a subject was too painful to pursue.

This was the hottest gossip ever! Already its spicy scandal was warming him from the inside like a glass of peppered pumpkin wine. He, Draco Malfoy, was in possession of the ultimate weapon! It was a bitter blow, a cruel irony, to realise that he would probably never use it; that, sometimes, solidarity went far deeper than you would have thought possible… And, besides, he had no proof.

"Stand still!" the Potions master ordered. "After last time I will not hesitate to use _Petrificus_… and a _Silencio_ wouldn't go amiss either. It may take a couple of 'hops' - there is a limit to the range of joint Apparations. Just don't fight the magic this time - you have to trust me."

"Yes, Sir." _I do, dammit_, thought Draco, as he felt Snape's grip tighten around him. _I do_.

At the last minute, Snape let his arms slacken and he took a step backwards so that he could look Draco in the eye.

"One more thing, Draco," he said very quietly. "After I drop you at the Floo connection, we may not see each other again for some time. If, however, it comes to my attention - and it will - that you have in any way tried to _capitalise_ on the events of today…"

He allowed the implied threat to hang in the dank morning air, swinging like a rotting corpse on a gibbet.

_I wasn't going to say anything anyway, thought Draco. Not yet._

_X X X_

Scottish footnotes (and apologies to any Scots out there!):

1 Dinna fash yerself: Don't fuss

2 tassie : cup

3 athole brose: traditional Scottish drink made of whiskey and fermented honey

4 uisge beatha : whisky (water of life)

5 clarty : dirty, nasty

6 Eilean Eas : island with the waterfall

7 bannock : oatcake

**End of Chapter. Next chapter : SNAPE : HERMIONE. Finally they are in the same room together... and they are forced into conversation. (But it's not fluffy or smutty! Sorry.)**


	6. Snape : Hermione

**Lost Perspective 5**

**READ MY MIND**

**By Bellegeste**

**Author's note: I have always felt that Snape and Hermione would be intellectually compatible… so if and when they ever got talking, it would be _serious_… You have been warned! **

**Chapter 6:SNAPE : HERMIONE**

December 1998 

Diagon Alley

The pot of Floo Powder was like a 'worry ball' in her hand. Every time Hermione's fingers sought the warmth of her cloak pocket, they closed automatically around the small, glass container, turning it over and over, her thumb stroking the smooth dome of the lid, caressing the curving belly of the jar.

It was a while since she had travelled by Floo. It wasn't that the Africans didn't have a network - they did - but many places didn't have flues, as such, so the spell had to be more complex. The system, however, was prone to failure, especially in the more rural areas. The nomads, the Tuaregs in particular, were the prime offenders: they would register for Floo access but then move on without notifying the authorities, so that, instead of arriving at their latest settlement, you would find yourself dumped in the cold, charcoal embers of an abandoned campfire in the middle of the empty desert…

Mainly, though, it had been the smell which discouraged Hermione from Floo transport - a smell which combined the heaving turdiness of blocked drains with the smoky, charred tang of a sanitary incinerator, and the rank fermentation of rancid silage. From an ecological point of view she could not fault the practice of burning sun-dried nuggets of camel dung, or even the rugby-ball sized Erumpent 'buns', but the smell made her want to hurl.

The grease-laden, cabbagey fug of the _Leaky Cauldron_, which clogged her lungs like broth after the clear air of the snow-bright Alley, wasn't much of an improvement. For a moment she felt almost nostalgic for a thorn-skewer brochette of spit-roasted Dik-dik, hung for too long (by Western standards) in the African heat, dripping gobs of pus-coloured fat in all directions as she waved away the insistent flies. The _Cauldron's_ 'Specials' board today offered an alliterative choice of 'Badger Burger Bap' or 'Goujons of Grilled Goat'. Hermione passed on those and ordered a Butterbeer.

Sitting at one of the dark, oaken trestles in an alcove, out of the way of the main hurly-burly of the inn, she watched the clock snail through the minutes. She had decided to make herself wait until late afternoon before she took the Floo. It wouldn't do to appear too eager. And, in any case, Harry would want to catch up with his father before she arrived on the scene.

All morning she had been rehearsing conversations in her mind, but they all hinged on one crucial question - was Harry ready to forgive her? And she simply did not know the answer. She had to deduce from Snape's invitation that Harry was willing to speak to her. Had they discussed her? They must have - she was realistic enough (as opposed to egotistic) to assume that her name must have cropped up at least once during the past couple of years. Had Harry told Snape how she had felt? That would be _so_ embarrassing, but no, she was a grown-up now, she would _rise above it_… So, did Snape know the reason for their quarrel, or not? Something inside her, some sixth-sense, gut feeling, woman's intuition, whatever you want to call it, told her that he did _not_. Something about the way he had reacted yesterday at _Flourish and Blotts_… If he had known, surely his attitude would have been more patronising, more superciliously disdainful? He could have really rubbed her nose in it. And yet she had detected a trace of uncertainty in his manner, of guilt even. Then later, at _Fortescue's_, had he, in his clinical way, been trying to bring about a reconciliation between them?

She sipped her Butterbeer and tried to concentrate on what she was going to say to Harry. She didn't dare think about Snape.

X X X

December 1998

Snape Cottage.

Hermione stepped out of the fireplace and almost tripped headlong over Braque. The giant tuatara lay sprawled on the hearth, his craggy body wrapped like a low, concrete wall around the brass fender, snout wedged up against the scuttle, inhaling the peaty drag of coal dust, plated tail resting lazily on the log basket.

Uttering an 'Oh!' of surprise, Hermione teetered between falling forwards on top of the huge, basking lizard, or backwards into the fire where the mild, green Floo flames had already ceded to conventional, hot ones.

"Keep absolutely still, Miss Granger!"

_That's easy enough for you to say_, thought Hermione, wobbling. _You needn't sound so worried; I'm not going to squash your precious pet_. As the whip-like, purple tongue flicked in and out, Hermione very carefully lowered herself into a squatting position and held out her hand for the lizard to 'taste'. She had the illogical feeling that the darting probe was sensing not only her lack of hostility or fear, but her entire being, mapping every pore and crease and molecule of her existence, and storing it away in some instinctual, reptilian repository. A blue eye fixed her in sharp focus and blinked. _He's got my photo on file now too! _With a series of guttural clicks, which seemed to originate deep within the stonework, Braque sank his head once more to the floor and resumed the arduous task of heat absorption.

Hermione straightened up and stepped over the recumbent lizard into the room.

"I see you still have a talent for ignoring advice," commented Snape coolly, coming to greet her. Harry was nowhere to be seen.

_Oh, don't start, just **don't start**_, she thought, cross already, furious at herself for her clumsy entrance. But she decided to forgive the sarcasm.

"Thank you for inviting me, Sir. I hope it's alright - my turning up like this. I should have sent an owl."

They eyed each other warily.

"I think we can dispense with the social niceties, Miss Granger. Who are you trying to impress? Your wiles will be wasted on me."

_The function of 'social niceties' is to ease rude people through awkward situations like this!_ Hermione cast about for small-talk, and her gaze fell - not literally this time - on the sleeping reptile.

"So this is Braque! Harry's told me about him. But I'd no idea he was so big!" she exclaimed, nodding enthusiastically down at the cliff-like form. "Harry always said he was a monster, but… He's really magnificent! And isn't he in fabulous condition?"

Her credibility restored, Hermione felt she was back in the running. Snape, she noted with a secret purr of satisfaction, was disconcerted - but only briefly. He rallied fast.

"And in what respect, Miss Granger, are you qualified to assess the health of tuatara? Have you added herpetology to your list of accomplishments? Another string to your bow? Ought I to be congratulating you?"

_How could he make a few simple questions sound so scathing? She'd show him!_

Hermione assumed an air of confidence:

"Bright, unclouded eyes, no outward evidence of scale rot, mite or tick infestation; no milkiness in skin colouration, no signs of calcium or Vitamin B12 deficiency, ample fat deposits in the tail zone… shall I go on, Sir?"

"That will not be necessary." He motioned to one of the low chairs. "Take a seat…"

Hermione settled herself with what she prayed was a modicum of elegance, and looked over at her ex-professor. She wondered how many hundreds, or thousands, she would have to count to, before her heart stopped fluttering in her chest like a flock of panicking flamingos. He returned her gaze steadily.

"You are waiting for me to pass comment on the extent and relevance of your knowledge," he stated (correctly), not without a trace of amusement. "You always did crave recognition for your undoubted abilities."

_Now was that a jibe or a compliment?_ Hermione decided that if he wanted her to show her mettle, she was up to the challenge.

Challenge? No, wait, this wasn't supposed to be a contest, a confrontation. It was a normal conversation between two adults, neither of whom had any possible hidden agenda… _Who was she trying to kid?_ Shouldn't she be trotting out her prepared speech? Now that it was crunch time, her nerves had turned to papaya pulp. And where on earth was Harry?

"Not 'crave', Sir, 'deserve'," she said softly. She saw his brow pucker. "As for the lizard… We were stationed at a campement near Djiguibombo - that's in Dogon Country - for almost a month," she told him, resigned to the idea that they were going to have to engage in preliminary conversation. "The wizard chief there owned three Crested Alliguana. I know they're not the same as Braque, Sir, but they do share reptilian characteristics. The female was surprisingly tame - I got quite fond of her, in a way. She was gravid, you know: it was a shame I wasn't there long enough to see the birth. I learned a fair bit from Chief Kombolé himself, and I looked up various details - about the Alliguana, and the local fauna in general. Or else I took samples to look up later. I like to be well-informed."

"So I recall."

_It was what had singled her out from her peers - an unslakable thirst for information; and the intellectual rigour to process that information once acquired. A laudable combination…_

"And, apart from anything else," Hermione continued, conscious that she was gabbling, but unable to stop herself, "I wanted to know exactly what gruesome creepy-crawlies I was tipping out of my shoes every morning. You know, whether I was supposed to scream and run, or catch the stupid things for breakfast. Even now I'm back in England, I still find myself checking my boots for scorpions."

Some day she might reveal the truth, but now was hardly the time. Snape's accident with Eamon, the Valera Viper, had shaken her so badly that she had vowed to revise the entire antidotes section of the syllabus. What had begun as a kind of academic penance for letting her concentration lapse in a couple of lessons, had developed into a compulsion in its own right. The textbook on toxins was lavishly illustrated with pictures of venomous snakes, spiders, frogs, jelly-fish and stinging insects - Hermione had studied them, at first with a morbid, fearful curiosity and, later, with growing interest.

Underpinning her unlikely fascination was the fact that this subject was dear to Snape's heart. In the lonely evenings in the library at Hogwarts she had tried, unsuccessfully, to banish Snape from her thoughts, while at the same time allowing herself to indulge in a secret liason: studying the snakes brought her closer to Snape. In sharing his passion for the poisonous creatures, she was entering into a clandestine communion. She _needed_ to know him, and, in his absence, this was the nearest she could get.

The transparency of her self-delusion made her smile, sadly and with resignation. She had pressed her heartache between the pages of the book along with the snakes, until it was two-dimensional – flat and dry and fragile.

By the time she sat her NEWTs Hermione could distinguish a Rinkhals from a Boomslang at a glance; she had learned the formula for the Barrier Balm that would enable her to handle an Arrow-poison frog without succumbing to the lethal fluid secreted through its skin; and she could prepare and administer the anti-venom for any species named in the text. She knew which toxins were destroyed by heat, retarded by cold, neutralised by acid or alkali; she knew - now - their effects on the body…

If Eamon ever bit Snape again…! She'd… she'd… well, she'd do pretty much what Quig had done, she thought wryly - but she'd be _kinder_ about it!

If, as an adjunct to her heroic 'saving Snape' daydream, she had picked up some incidental facts about reptiles, that was no bad thing. So what if she knew how to diagnose egg-retention in a Snapping Turtle, or how to determine the sex of a snake using a lubricated probe, or whether Spiny Lizards prefer Mugworms to Waxmoth larvae - the information would come in handy sometime. It had stood her in good stead when she was in Africa. And again today. She had _known_ that Braque was a spectacularly healthy specimen.

Snape was still contemplating her. He was less gaunt than she remembered, less strained, his skin was not as sallow – as though, for once in his life, he had stepped foot out of his dingy, candle-lit dungeons and into the fresh air. Of course, he had been travelling too. That would explain it. She couldn't fathom his expression: it was not critical (for a change); she would almost have called it 'entertained' but there was an element of caution there too – as though he might have laid a trap and was treading carefully, waiting for her to spring it. It made her nervous: a film of perspiration was developing between her breasts. _And where the hell was Harry?_

Snape deftly caught her glance as it travelled over his shoulder towards the door.

"My son has been delayed," he told her, "but he will be arriving shortly. I assume that is who you were looking for."

Hermione flushed - she hadn't intended to be that obvious; she kept forgetting that Snape had been a spy and was more than usually observant. He must think her awfully rude when he had made the effort to be, by his standards, polite. For Snape, this was positively gracious! The proprietorial way in which he now referred to Harry as 'his son' and not by name, brought a lump to her throat.

"I could come back later," she offered.

"As you wish." He was not going to detain her.

At that moment the door swung silently open. Relief flooded in to sweep the conversation off its stilted feet and into a more natural flow: Harry to the rescue! Hermione half rose out of her seat to welcome him, but the new arrival was not Harry. It was Quig.

The elf was carrying an oval, wooden tray, inlaid with a marquetry design of tessellated leaves, interlocking like an Escher engraving. His progress across the room was painstakingly slow and measured as he concentrated on not spilling the hot tea: with each rolling step it sloshed to the very lip of the spout and then dipped back again, like a timid brown vole wavering at the entrance to its burrow.

Quig plonked the tray down on the floor between them - negating his earlier elaborate care - and, as soon as his hands were free, signed something sharp and, by the look of it, admonitory. Then, with a final nod to Hermione, drawing himself up with dignity to his full, tiny height, he stumped out.

Loath as she had been to drag her attention away from the beach-combed, brain-coral features of the aged elf, Hermione had found herself watching Snape's hands. Their reply had been smooth, fluid and - what was the word Harry had used? - _minimal_, his long fingers stroking the silent shapes into meaning.

"It seems I am a negligent host," he said, handing her a cup of tea and dismissing Quig's remonstrance with a tolerant quirk of the eyebrow. Harry had always said that, for some obscure reason, Snape let the elf get away with murder. "He bids you 'G-day'!"

He pronounced the word with distaste, the Australian intonation sounding alien on his lips. Hermione didn't want to let herself get side-tracked by his lips…

"So, Miss Granger, - Africa?"

The point had long gone at which she might have casually exclaimed: "Oh do call me Hermione!" It appeared that she was stuck with _Miss Granger_. At least it kept everything on a formal footing. She guessed that this would be no light-hearted chat about the food and the weather; unlike Lupin - dear old Remus! - Snape would not be paying her awkward compliments about her hair. This would probably be more akin to an interview. Or an interrogation. She took a deep breath.

"Yes, Sir. West Africa, to be precise."

Now what had she said wrong? She recognised of old that momentary furrowing of the brow, the slight pursing of the lips, the thoughtful, intimidating pause…

"If that is your notion of geographical _precision_, Miss Granger, I can only hope that you were not employed as a guide… It is my understanding - but, naturally, I cede to your _superior knowledge_ - that West Africa covers an area of hundreds of thousands of square miles and incorporates the separate nations of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cote d'Ivoire, Nigeria, Senegal and Mali, to name but a few. Need I list them all? Now, would you care to be a little _more_ precise?"

Hermione gritted her teeth. If he wanted to play at pedants she was happy to oblige; she wasn't going to let herself be brow-beaten.

"As you wish…" she replied, deliberately echoing his own phrase, and checking to see that he acknowledged the fact. It was defiant, but what could he do - give her a Detention? "OK. Let me see… I initially travelled out to Senegal and met up with the Wizard-Aid team at Yoff - their HQ is at the wizard village there, on the outskirts of Dakar. I stayed there for a week of introductory training, then we moved on through Mali via Bamako and Mopti, then by pinasse along the Niger to Konoumé, and on to Timbuktu. From there we went north into Tuareg territory for a couple of weeks. After that we came south again and spent most of September in Dogon Country, visiting the communities along the Bandiagara escarpment. For the last three months I was based at Nazionga-Saghrir in southern Burkina Faso - do you know it, Sir? Professor Lupin said that you and Harry had been to the snake sanctuary. That's in the Forêt de Sissili, isn't it, not far from Nazionga? Is that _precise_ enough, Sir?"

She couldn't disguise the note of challenge that, despite her earlier resolve, was creeping into her voice.

Snape had been listening attentively, his expression focussed, mapping her route in his mind as she spoke. He seemed taken aback to have two questions fired at him in short succession.

"A marked improvement, Miss Granger," he said, answering her second question first. "And no, we confined our visit to Sissili itself. Wizard-Aid is an international organisation, is it not?"

Hermione, sipping her tea, nodded, wondering how, _precisely_, he intended to deride the charity's work and objectives, but the next question in the interrogation was directed more specifically at herself. She was surprised that he cared enough to ask.

"With your NEWTs results, the field of employment must have been wide open. What impelled you to join Wizard-Aid? Why Burkina Faso? It is hardly the career that the Hogwarts staff had envisaged for you."

_No? What had they marked me down as? A librarian? A Lab rat? A teacher? An academic? _

"Well, they approached me, Sir. I suppose I fitted the criteria they were looking for."

"The criteria being…?"

"Um, recent experience in a wizard school, preferably Hogwarts, understanding of Muggle society, organisational abilities, relevant linguistic skills - that sort of thing, Sir."

"You're not going to tell me you now speak _Hausa_?"

His eyes flashed incredulity, and she could have laughed out loud. It delighted her that he could even think her capable of such a feat.

"_Inaa jin ingiliishii e faransancii kawai. Ban gaanee ba_," she quoted, unable to resist showing-off, just to see the look on his face. She was not disappointed. "Or, if you prefer it in Arabic…" she continued, "_Ma-atkallam arabi. Tatkallam faransi aw ingleezi?"_

She knew she was being insufferable, but it was just too delicious, seeing Snape momentarily lost for words.

"Bog-standard guide-book phrases?" he scoffed.

"Did I claim otherwise? I made a point of mugging up the words for '_I don't understand'_, '_I don't speak (whatever language it was)_' and '_do you speak English or French?_'" she explained, defending herself but not wanting to appear too obnoxious. "It saved me a lot of trouble. I should have learned to say '_You surely don't expect me to eat that' _too," she ended, daring to risk a touch of humour. Had she just cracked a joke - even a lame one - with Professor Snape?

She'd trotted out the well-worn, stock sentences that she'd been using daily for the past five months, without adapting them. Now she reproached herself for that omission.

"You speak French?" Snape unerringly picked up on the one point she had hoped he would overlook.

"Not very fluently," she lied. What possible reason could she give for having gone to all the effort of spelling herself with _Linguascio_? _Sir, I was so besotted with you that I decided to learn French and read Rimbaud?_ It sounded pathetic! "My parents took me on holiday to France a couple of years ago - a week in Paris to climb the Eiffel Tower, 'do' the Louvre, that sort of thing, and then on to 'the Chateaux of the Loire'… I learned a little. The Wizard-Aid people were impressed though. It came in useful, what with French being the lingua franca in most of West Africa. The French colonial influence is still very strong…"

"I do **not** require a lesson in History."

"No, Sir."

She had really irritated him now. Beneath his veneer of civility she sensed conflict and a taut self-restraint. _It must go against the grain not to yell at me, she thought. He must think I'm a silly, insolent, prattling show-off. At least he's trying not to behave like a teacher…_

And Snape, regarding Hermione sitting opposite him, saw a young woman, vibrant with energy and enthusiasm, intelligent, articulate, committed, sincere, full of youthful idealism and optimism, capable, dynamic, intrepid, with a ripening maturity and confidence - and he too was impressed.

"It seems we have time to kill. You might as well tell me about the Wizard-Aid project," he said, sounding bored.

Ever since she had got back, people had been asking her about Africa - about the weather, the heat and dust, the peculiar food, the bug-infested accommodation, her wizard colleagues, the animals, the local entertainment – the traditional griot singers and the exotic mask dances. Her mother, unused to the concept of _Drying Charms_, had fussed about how she had kept her things dry during the long rainy season. It was as though they thought she'd been on holiday. No one had wanted to know about her actual work - until now. Hermione barely knew where to start.

"The project is attempting to address a problem that has long been apparent in the wizard community in West Africa," she began, nerves making her pompous. "Well, actually I gather it's a problem throughout the third world to a varying degree, but I can only speak for the countries I covered. It's to do with the integration of tribal magical and mystical beliefs into mainstream culture, Sir."

She stopped, thinking that most audiences would be content to leave it at that.

"Go on," he said, encouragingly.

She sensed his eyes upon her, perusing her like a document, reading the fine-print. Checking for errata, she thought. She was definitely on her mettle now; she launched another volley of factual detail. She felt safer with statistics.

"The thing is, Sir, it's such a multi-cultural society out there. Which is good, don't get me wrong, but it complicates things. There are so many different tribal customs that virtually anything goes. In Burkina Faso alone, about half the Muggle population is Muslim, and the other half are mainly animist with, maybe, 10 Christian. There are so few recorded wizards that the numbers aren't statistically significant. In just the one country there are six ethnic groups and five African tribal languages, and that's without the regional dialects. The '_Sanjinn_' - that's what they call Muggles, Sir; it means 'without magic' – live side by side with the wizards in many places. They can be completely integrated - even to the extent of being open about their magic. Sometimes they are almost indistinguishable."

"Are you saying that the Muggles are developing magical powers?" Snape asked doubtfully.

"No, it's not that." She checked again, but he actually seemed to be getting interested now. "They have a saying: '_L'Afrique, c'est mystique' _- it's that the Sanjinn i.e. the Muggles' tribal belief system encompasses animism, fetishism, ancestor and spirit worship; they believe in devils and 'ju-ju' and voodoo; each tribe has their own witch-doctor or medicine man - even the Muslims have their Marabouts - who are supposed to have real magical powers. They cast 'spells' and prepare 'charms' and _gris-gris_ - they're amulets - to make you invisible or invulnerable… And all this is accepted as a normal part of everyday life."

Hermione paused, aware that she wasn't explaining the issues very clearly. It was such a vast subject.

"And the role of Wizard-Aid in all this?" prompted Snape.

"Oh, yes - sorry, Sir. I'm getting to that. The Burkinabé Ministry of Magic has identified a worrying trend: an increasing reluctance on the part of Sanjinn families to allow children who show genuine magical aptitude to be given proper wizard training. There is already a tradition of apprenticeship to the local Marabout, but that is very selective - apart from the fact that he may not even be a real wizard at all. A great number of children with wizard potential are simply falling through the net and never getting the chance to develop their skills."

"Is it not the Ministry's responsibility to identify such children? Do their parents not want to cultivate their abilities?" Snape asked, still observing her intently.

Hermione wished he wouldn't look at her like that. She felt as though she should be checking her presentation for mis-spellings and typos… Flicking her hair back, she tugged down her sleeves which, somehow, in her enthusiasm, had been pushed up to her elbows. Snape, she was sure, would have noted her bare arms, and marked her down as scruffy and unprofessional.

"For one thing, the Ministry there isn't nearly as efficient as Hogwarts is about getting in touch with the children. They claim they can barely keep track of the population. It's as though they're not trying… We're not allowed to say this officially, Sir, but the Ministry is basically corrupt. If you think Fudge and his lot are a bunch of self-serving hypocrites…"

Snape's eyebrows lifted at this, and his lips twitched, but he didn't comment.

"…and as for the parents - well, the level of education can be very low, especially in the remote rural communities. Most of them couldn't read a letter, even if they were sent one. When a child manifests signs of latent magical powers, the parents are more than likely to believe that he is possessed by the djinn. It is very difficult to persuade them that it is a talent to be trained and nurtured."

Hermione couldn't hide her frustration. Time and again her well-intentioned approaches had been rebuffed by uncomprehending Sanjinn, who preferred to entrust their children's future to the charlatan clutches of the tribal witch doctor.

"So, you have, I take it, been establishing a structured educational programme for wizard children, and trying to sell the idea," Snape summarised, teaching skills coming into play.

Hermione looked at him gratefully.

"Yes, Sir. I was there mainly to help with the administrative side of things - obviously, I don't yet have the experience to do much else – but I think I may have made some useful contributions, in dealing with the Sanjinn, for instance, or making comments on the suggested syllabus."

She wasn't fishing for compliments; Snape didn't offer any.

"Do you have any evidence of corruption within the Burkinabé Ministry of Magic?"

"Nothing tangible, Sir. That's part of the problem. It's mainly that they are so uncooperative, when one would expect it to be in their interest to do anything they can to support the project. The general feeling is that they are exploiting the rules on the 'Misuse of Magic for Personal Gain' to maintain their own positions. If there were more trained wizards about, they would lose their elite status. And again, there's a huge question mark over the whole issue of respect for magical ethics - it's the same dilemma that wizards everywhere face, but somehow it seems so much more immediate when the communities' lives are so closely linked. In some regions the standard of living is so poor that it would be an irresistible temptation for wizards to sink a few magical wells, or work some mineral extraction spells at the mines, or just to get the millet to grow when the rains fail…"

For months the injustice of a system in which magic was not permitted to be used to better the lot of the Muggle population, had been festering within her. Barbaric tribal ceremonies, primitive living conditions - the whole African experience - had come as a major culture shock to Hermione. With everyone else so far she had striven to give her account of her trip a dynamic, positive, _worthy_ gloss, but now in the soul-stripping glare of Snape's undivided attention, spurred on by his pertinent, if terse, questions, her honest, anguished impressions of Africa spilled out.

She found herself painting a despairing, heart-felt picture of the seemingly insurmountable environmental problems faced by the tribesmen: soil erosion, deforestation, desertification, water pollution, loss of bio-diversity – all apparently exacerbated by climate change, and beyond their control; she railed against political issues: poor governance, corruption, tribal insurrection, instability, destructive policies on logging and oil extraction; she vehemently decried the deplorable standards of public health care and the terrifying catalogue of crippling diseases endemic to the region: Dengue Fever, Diptheria, Aids, Malaria, River Blindness, Bilharzia …

…Hermione could hear herself reeling off the list, ranting on her soap-box, in her own fever of moral outrage…

"Oh, heck, I'm sorry, Sir! I've been going on about myself all this time. I do tend to get carried away…"

"You are passionate about your _work_, Miss Granger. There is no need to apologise. Such dedication is admirable."

She couldn't believe she had been pouring her heart out to Snape. No, she _could_ believe it - that was the ironic thing. She had always felt she would be able to talk to him, given the chance. She had just never expected him to _listen_. But he had listened; he'd even asked questions; he'd treated her like an adult. Suddenly she became self-conscious. It struck her forcibly that, apart from Quig, they were alone in the house, together. She was acutely aware of his physical presence. His closeness. _If Harry didn't come soon…_ A diversion was urgently required.

From her pocket she produced a diminutive container, smaller than an acorn. It was delicately carved from a dark, tropical hardwood, highly polished and with a tight-fitting lid. It lay in the palm of her hand, glinting with mysterious promise, like a shiny, magic bean.

"This is for you, Sir," she said, holding out her hand.

"For me?" The interest in his eyes was instantly replaced by suspicion. Harry had said his father wasn't accustomed to friendly gestures - Hermione rushed to explain before he got the wrong idea.

"It was actually given to **me**, Sir, but I thought you'd know what to do with it. You'll make better use of it than I ever would. Be careful opening it, Sir."

"What is it?"

"Powdered Nundu claw."

Hermione could have sworn that he actually stopped breathing. His grasp on the tiny box tightened and his eyes glittered with suppressed excitement.

"If you open the lid, don't sneeze or anything, Sir," she said lightly, trying to diffuse the moment. "That stuff's precious."

"An understatement if ever I heard one," he muttered, transfixed by the container. How many wizards in the world had ever _seen_ one of the elusive, giant leopards, let alone acquired one of the highly-prized, unimaginably potent, magical claws? How many wizards did it take to even _catch_ a Nundu - over a hundred? How did they elude its lethal breath? Finally he looked up at Hermione - she would not have thought it possible for those dark eyes to radiate such warmth and fervour.

"You're sure you want me to have this, Miss Granger? Do you fully appreciate the value of this powder? How in Merlin's name did you come by it?"

"I want you to keep it, Sir." She almost added 'for old times' sake'.

"Thank you," Snape said, very quietly indeed.

**End of chapter. Well?**

**Next chapter: HARRY : HERMIONE : SNAPE . Is three a crowd?**


	7. Harry : Hermione : Snape

**LOST PERSPECTIVE 5**

**READ MY MIND**

**By Bellegeste**

**Reviews: Thanks to all of you.**

**Otherside2: No, I've never been to West Africa. It's just me, my Atlas and Guide book and a stretched imagination.**

**Avery: Yes, it does swap to Hermione's PoV there. Establishing the correct 'voice' is a thorny one. It's helpful when you point out places where it is too ambiguous. Please continue! This story is mainly from Hermione's PoV - other characters' thoughts are mostly indicated with italics, or a kind of 'authorial voice' comment, which could have come from the character. But, I know, I'm not wholly consistent. Can be difficult to make it clear without the constant repetition of 'he thought / she thought'. Sometimes I rely on context. With Snape, though, I am very tentative about showing his inner thoughts - I tend to show his reactions and we have to guess what he's thinking most of the time (apart from in 'Post Mortem').**

**Chapter 7: HARRY : HERMIONE : SNAPE**

Sudden activity in the hallway… The double crash of the door shoved open and shouldered shut; the lifeless thud of a heavy bag dumped down; the clatter of a falling broomstick; stamping feet…

"Hello! Anybody in?"

At the sound of Harry's voice, Snape stood up abruptly.

Harry tramped into the room, bringing with him a chilly gust of the outdoors - a waft of damp earth, decaying winter leaves and the smoky smear of bonfires, the filtered residue of the December afternoon clinging round him in a fine cloud. His boots left a trail of wet, muddy tracks and, as he unfastened his cloak, the white crystals flecking his shoulders melted into transparency and dripped onto the polished floor. His black hair was spangled with misty, silver droplets.

"Is it snowing?" Snape asked.

No spontaneous displays of affection, Hermione noticed, just a resumption of… of what? …hostilities? …indifference? …acceptance?

"Trying to. But it's not settling. More like sleet, really." Harry surveyed the mess he had already managed to create with a careless shrug.

"I'll clean it up, OK?" He forestalled Snape's as yet unspoken reproof. "Sorry I'm late. Did you get my owl? We stopped off at Ron's and - well, you know what Mrs W's like - had to ply us with that lethal punch of hers, and give me my Christmas present. And - " Here Harry gave his father a roguish grin, "she sent you 'the compliments of the season'. In a few hundred years," Harry went on, "she might even forgive you for existing. You never know your luck - she might knit you a jumper!"

Snape snorted.

"I walked across the estate from the gate…" Harry chatted on affably.

"Evidently."

"You know how it is at this time of year. You get so sick of being cooped up inside…"

"No, Harry, _you_ do…"

Hermione listened to this exchange, totally fascinated. It was clear that Harry did not know she was there, sitting quietly by the fire, partially shielded from view behind Snape's towering figure. Harry was almost as tall as his father now, she observed. But somehow he seemed to take up a lot more space. He had changed - there was something more relaxed about him, looser, as though his limbs had all been slackened off at the joints. He looked wickedly healthy and not exactly rugged, but weathered and comfortably grubby and - Hermione knew this was an odd thing to say, but it was the impression she got - _at peace_ with himself. With a pang, she compared Harry as she had last seen him at Hogwarts – tense, angry and resentful – with the amiable, 'chilled' young man who had just cheerfully trodden half a field into Snape's front room, and it didn't seem like the same person. Remus had said that spending time with the Weasleys had done Harry good. It certainly seemed that their easy-going, laissez-faire attitude had rubbed off. Hermione almost expected him to be wearing his hair (thick, straight, Snape hair now,) in a ponytail like Bill.

"Where's Braque?" he asked next. "Where's my old pal, Braquie? Here, boy! Where are you? Cooking your fat tum as usual, eh boy!"

He took a loping stride towards the fireplace, and stopped dead as Hermione came into his line of sight.

"Hermione! I didn't know you were here! Hell, I'm sorry - I didn't realise… er, hi, how are you?"

He shot a pained, 'you could have told me' glance at Snape. His father had just removed Harry's sodden cloak from its steaming heap on the floor, and was holding it at wands' length, with an expression of pure disgust. Hermione saw the fastidious flinch of his nostrils and, unexpectedly, deep inside her, felt a corresponding curl of desire…

"Do you wish me to disinfect this disreputable garment, or destroy it?"

"Get Quig to boil it up for soup!"

Harry laughed as Snape stalked out with the offending cloak, leaving in its wake a rank, animal odour - of stables, dung and singed straw. Hermione assumed it must be dragons, but to her mind the smell evoked the cool, pearly dawn at Bandiagara: turning the sooty camel embers for a spark to fan into the new day's fire; the sour, musky line of dew-drenched Dogon saddle blankets, spread on the thorn bushes to dry as the pale sun yawned over the escarpment…

"Hello, Harry," she said.

He stooped down to give Braque an affectionate pat on his scaly belly, then stepping over him, stood with his back to the fire, considering her in silence. Braque clicked his annoyance as Harry's legs blocked the heat.

"It's good to see you." Harry spoke slowly.

"Is it?" She eyed him searchingly. "Is it really?"

They stared at each other across the barrage of betrayal and wounded pride that had separated them for two years. Over time the bitter waters had receded, and now, Hermione realised, they had seeped away altogether, leaving just a dried, crusty sediment of hurt memories.

"Yeah," he said. Re-crossing the Braque barrier, he came and sat in Snape's chair opposite her. "I'm glad you're here. Really. I wanted to see you. Look, I'll just come straight out and say this, OK? I made a real balls of things at school. I did, didn't I? I got the wrong end of the stick. I've been meaning to say something for ages…"

"You were _horrid_ to me, Harry. I didn't deserve it."

"Yeah, I know. But it was… it was like you were trying to muscle in…"

_Muscle-in? On Snape? Is that how it had seemed? That she was riding rough-shod through the new, fragile relationship between Harry and his father? Did she, then, owe Harry an apology?_

"What are you doing here anyway?" he asked. "I thought you were out in…"

"Africa? Yes, I was. I'm just back for Christmas - to see my parents and so on. Same as you. And Professor Snape invited me."

"Oh. He did? _Did he?"_ Harry seemed to think this significant.

"Do you suppose he's left us alone together on purpose?" Hermione chanced a smile at Harry. "To sort things out? I didn't think he'd go in for matchmaking."

"Who knows?" Harry was strangely dismissive, preoccupied.

"Are you getting on alright now - you and Snape? He seems OK," she ventured. If she was conscious of the gulf between herself and Harry, neither did she have any real idea of how things stood between Harry and his father. There was a great deal to catch up on.

"Yes, it's fine. We're getting there. We just don't push it, that's all." Harry was non-specific. He gave her a shrewdly calculating glance.

"And what about you? Have you and - "

Whatever he was about to say was drowned out by an apocalyptically loud gong, which reverberated through the house like the final judgement. Hermione's impression that her ear-drums had been permanently perforated was succeeded by the thought that this might be the least of her problems.

"Quig wants us all to be as deaf as he is. That's his idea of a joke. For an elf he's got a really black sense of humour. Comes of working for Snape for so long," Harry commented. "Dinner is served!"

x x x

'Dragon talk' monopolised the whole of the first course. Harry was positively effusive in his descriptions of the great beasts. He had a natural affinity with them, that much was evident - respect for their tremendous strength, their devious intelligence and vicious unpredictability, but without fear. Or, at least, not the crippling, paralysing sort of fear that ends up with you getting killed.

He talked about the dragon species he had encountered: Romanian Longhorns, Ukranian Ironbellies, Hungarian Horntails and a Norwegian Ridgeback. Then he described the controlled breeding scheme, the campaign for the reintroduction of young dragons born into captivity into the wild, particularly in northern Carpathia where a fully warded dragon reserve was already under construction; and the experimental cross-breeding programme currently underway to produce a Vipertooth that was less partial to human flesh.

For Snape's benefit, Hermione guessed, Harry went into elaborate detail about the collection of scale samples for analysis. They were tested for heat and flame resistance, fire retardancy, spell-proofing, magical properties, susceptibility to dragon-related parasites and bacterial attack.

He had even seen Norbert.

"I must tell Hagrid; he'll be interested to find out how he's getting on. Grown into an evil brute, though. It's a good job Hagrid didn't hang on to him!"

But he sympathised with Hagrid too. Having assisted for several weeks in the hatchery, Harry understood only too well the wonder of witnessing these fierce, proud creatures hacking their way out of their shells, formidably independent at only minutes old. He knew how superficially cute and appealing a baby dragon could be – until it barbecued your hand with an untimely, firey cough.

He was circumspect about the riskier elements of his visit. Hermione knew enough about the older Weasleys to realise that, even though Charlie was by far the most responsible (she'd given up on Percy), even he didn't always play 'safe'. She had heard that there was an established dragon-taming programme, a long and labour-intensive process that involved acclimatisation and desensitisation techniques, but which culminated, ultimately, in the dragon being ride-able, if not necessarily obedient.

"So, did you ride one?" she asked, enthralled.

Harry grappled with the desire on the one hand to wow Hermione with his bravery, and, on the other, to wipe off Snape's frown of alarm and disapproval.

"What? So what if I did?" Harry faced his father defensively. "Talk about hypocrisy!" He turned back to Hermione. "**He** rode a Horntail when he was my age," he protested, "so he's in no position to adopt that safety-conscious, morally superior attitude with me…"

"Did you, Sir?" _Why should the thought make her so breathless?_

"It was a long time ago."

He killed the topic humanely, and switched the subject to Africa. Maybe he was tired of dragons.

"Miss Granger has been working near Sissili."

Recognising the name, Harry was immediately interested.

"The snake sanctuary place? Did you visit it?"

"No, but I wish I had!" She meant it too. Hearing the sincerity in her voice Snape looked at her, intrigued. Harry took up the conversation avidly.

"We were there last summer - had a great time. It was a bit damn wet - rainy season, you know. Oh, I suppose you **do** know! But the snakes didn't seem to mind."

Hermione had never seen Harry quite so animated. Was he like this all the time now? It was as though, for the first time in his life, he found that he was allowed to air his own opinions openly, and a lifetime's pent-up experiences were clamouring for expression.

"We went to see if we could find a mate for Szahuna - he's been fretting lately and, besides, you know how valuable Runespoor eggs are. It was hilarious! I had to interview the prospective candidates - all volunteers, incidentally. Tricky finding anyone 'compatible' though, if you catch my drift…"

He gave an exaggerated wink, and tapped his nose… _Oh no, thought Hermione, more Weasleyisms. Any minute now he'll launch into the 'Dead Dragon' sketch…_

"Hulmin was actually very unselfish about the whole thing - said his heart already belonged to _Another_…"

Hermione couldn't resist sneaking a peek at Snape - was he aware that he had a snakey admirer in his basement? To her surprise, he returned her glance, with a dismissive raising of his eyebrows.

Harry re-claimed her attention, addressing her directly.

"What about you, Hermione? Do you remember that time in the Common room when we were talking about animal dares? You said that if you ever went to Africa…"

"…I'd ride an Erumpent!" She laughed. "Yes, we said a lot of things… Well, I'm sorry, but I didn't. I did see one though. Tethered in the fetish market at Bamako. It was all rather sad, actually. Poor thing! It was obviously very old, or else it had some sort of Stunning Charm on it, because it was so spiritless and lethargic - it's horrible to see an animal broken like that. I didn't want to ride it. It's so undignified - for the Erumpent, and me too, probably. It was all a bit too touristy for me…"

A perfect 'tarte au citron' appeared on the table, creamily smooth but with a sharp, zesty bite to it.

"You know, you are very mean about Quig's cooking," said Hermione politely. "This is delicious! And there weren't any peculiar mushrooms in the ragout at all!"

"He's made a special effort, in your honour," said Harry. "Normally his food's… er… what's the word?"

"Inedible," muttered Snape.

"Individual. Questionable. Esoteric. He must approve of you! He's not the only one!" Harry grinned. For a moment he looked suggestively 'laddish'. Recoiling, Hermione reflected that Harry had picked up a lot more from the Weasleys than knowledge about dragons. She also began to wonder just how much punch Molly had given him earlier…

"Don't _you_ think Hermione's looking absolutely knock-out?" Harry addressed the question provocatively at Snape, but Hermione jumped in, saving him the embarrassment of answering.

"Oh, stop it, Harry! Tell us what happened in the end to that Horntail - the one that derailed the train in the Tïrgoviste Tunnel…"

Hermione watched them both, father and son, as Harry launched into a convoluted anecdote about a train crash, tunnel collapse, rescuing a wounded dragon and _Obliviating_ virtually the entire Romanian emergency services… Harry - tanned, handsome, relaxed, expansive - more like Bill than Charlie, really - more assertive than she remembered, embellishing the story here and there for dramatic effect, displaying a new, easy confidence in the presence of his father that she would not have suspected. And Snape - coolly attentive, concentrating, absorbed in his son's tale, yet listening critically, alert to discrepancies in the narrative, regarding Harry with an expression of both pride and irritation, the unaccustomed heartiness jarring his sensibilities… In the candlelight his features were thrown into relief, the shadows accentuating the beaky sharpness of his nose and cheekbones, the lined brow, the unfathomable depths of his eyes. He was not good-looking - not like Harry - and yet…

Hermione couldn't help remembering the first time the three of them had been together in this house. It had all been so different then. She had been a schoolgirl; Harry had been her friend; there had been no lasting bitterness to sour their relationship, no jocular innuendo; and Snape had been unavailable, and out of bounds. In two years how much had changed?

Every second she had spent in Snape's room that day as he lay there injured, in pain, was indelibly imprinted on her brain. She remembered every word that had passed between them. It was something; it was nothing. He had wanted Lily, not her. Lines of the poem she had glimpsed so briefly in Lily's book were, even now, rooted in her mind: _'je trace les lèvres…'_ (_I trace your lips_). Reliving the dream, she gazed at him now, unattainable and remote as ever, and, in her mind, she was experimentally tracing the outline of his lips…with her tongue…

She pulled herself up sharply. Someone had asked her a question.

"Well, did you?" Harry was saying.

"Sorry? What? Did I what?" She felt herself blushing.

"Bring me back a totem pole! Or an Erumpent-foot umbrella stand? Or a Fwooper feather head-band?"

"You're getting warmer on the last one." Actually she had brought Harry a present - a peace offering - even though she hadn't been sure that she would get the chance to give it to him, or even whether he would have wanted to meet with her at all. It was a traditional Bambara tribal '_chiwara_', or Antelope mask, with the power to bring strength, happiness and success in battle to the wearer. It was an artefact from that magically indeterminate crossover zone: to the _Sanjinn_ the horned Antelope symbolised speed and grace and fighting prowess; to a wizard, the animal mask acquired a greater significance the more closely it resembled his _Patronus_. It worked both ways.

"It's in my bag, over near Braque. I'll get if for you in a sec. Don't be impatient! So, do you see a career for yourself in Dragon taming? Will you be going back there after Christmas?"

"If Charlie'll have me. Oh, I know I'll have to get myself a real job one of these days, but for the time-being…It's been bloody good fun! How about you? Back to Africa?"

Hermione realised that she did not know the answer.

"It depends…" She gave a vague laugh. Up until a few seconds ago, she had had every intention of returning to Burkino Faso as soon as the holiday period was over. Now, all of a sudden, she found that her plans could be flexible.

"On what?" Snape asked sharply.

_**On you**, damn it! I should never have come here. I knew this was a mistake. I was doing just fine. I think I could establish quite a niche for myself at Wizard Aid - everything was just starting to slot into place. The work's interesting and fulfilling; the people are great… I must be crazy to be thinking of jacking it in… And for what? On the basis of what? One conversation?_

"Well, I have been considering 'research'. It's only an idea, but…"

"Into which particular field, Miss Granger?"

"Some of the traditional, African tribal remedies are so amazing… It's hard to believe that they're not magical. I was thinking of something along the lines of a study of tribal medicine with a view to incorporating a magical component for greater effectiveness. Or at least a full identification, classification and analysis of the ingredients. Um, I brought home a few samples. I was hoping to get a chance to analyse them in my spare time over Christmas. I thought maybe Professor Dumbledore might let me use the facilities at Hogwarts."

Harry had assumed a puzzled, pitying expression.

"In your spare time? At Christmas? You're a sad case, Hermione. You're supposed to be on holiday! But, oh no, you have to bring some work to do. I thought life in the 'real world' might have cured you of all that."

" 'fraid not. Sorry! I'm incorrigible, Harry!"

"You could use the equipment here, couldn't she, Sir? That would be alright, wouldn't it?" Harry declared enthusiastically, without waiting to see if Snape had any objections. "You don't mind, do you, Sir?"

Snape was not in the habit of throwing his lab open to visitors. He baulked, briefly, then nodded tacit consent.

"There! That's settled then." Harry beamed at her. "So, what sort of samples are we talking about? Pretty hot stuff, eh? Anything juicy? Aphrodisiac Aardvark eggs? Sandonkey sperm? Otters' noses?"

Hermione visualised her uninspiring collection of mosses, lichens, bark, sap spots, mould scrapings, and the few toxic drops she had managed to extract from stinging insects. You had to start somewhere.

"Nothing so exciting. Well, apart from…" She glanced at Snape.

"Miss Granger has given me this," Snape responded, his eyes flashing to meet Hermione's. He held up the little, carved container between his thumb and forefinger for Harry to inspect. "I will not, at this juncture, open it. It contains powdered Nundu claw."

He definitely sounds pleased, she thought.

"Nundu? Well, bugger me!" exclaimed Harry. "And there was I thinking I'd done well to get some clippings from a Ridgeback's tail-spike. Crumbs - to think I've been trumped by a leopard! You certainly win this round, Hermione. Where the hell did you get it?"

"It was given to me as a 'thank you' by a Tuareg tribal chief in Timia."

"What for? 'Services rendered'?" Harry leered. More innuendo. She could do without it.

"That will do, Harry! Miss Granger has not come here to be insulted by your lewd insinuations! You will treat your guests with respect!" Snape was unnecessarily sensitive on her behalf.

"It's OK." She smiled at him. "I never got to tell you where the claw came from, did I, Sir?" she said, drawing him into a less personal topic of conversation. There was an underlying tension between him and Harry she didn't fully understand. But it was making her uncomfortable.

"It was when we were up in the north, with the nomads. The daughter of the Tuareg chief had gone into labour with her first child, and she was having a really rough time. Everyone thought she'd die. It was very touch and go. The tribal medicine man had tried everything he knew… and they wouldn't let us perform any of our magic – not even a spell to relieve the pain. They believe that a baby born through wizard magic will be rejected by the ancestor spirits in the after-world… It was awful, hearing her shrieking in agony and not being able to do anything about it…

"Anyway, I had an idea. I didn't know if it would work; I mean, I'd never done anything like that before, but if she was going to die anyway…"

She had their full attention now.

"You see, there's a particular type of scorpion that you get in that part of the Sahara. I don't know what its proper name is, but they called it a _Dagger Tail_. It's sting is highly poisonous - and I mean, _highly_… so the locals give it a wide berth - but if you mix the venom with sap from the leaves of the _Welwitschia_ plant, it reduces its toxicity, and has a more anaesthetic effect - it kind of numbs the pain receptors, but you don't lose consciousness, and the effect wears off in a few hours. Incidentally, Sir, I've got samples of both of those."

Snape was nodding thoughtfully.

"Well, it occurred to me that we might use that mixture to reduce pain without loss of function, a bit like an epidural… It seemed worth a try. And it worked! The poor woman still went through the most awful ordeal, but she was able to push the baby out…

"And her father was _so_ grateful. He was almost in tears! I've still no idea where he got the Nundu claw from. He had it in a gold pot, inside this amazing, fantastically carved casket - it was obviously one of his most treasured possessions - and he spooned me out a little bit into that container there. To be honest, I'm not even sure if it is Nundu claw - it might be Buffalo horn, for all I know. I thought Se- " _What was she doing? She'd almost used his name! _"I thought Professor Snape might be able to help me test it. Make a potion and see if it's the real thing."

She made the suggestion tentatively, anxious not to sound impertinent. 'Testing' had occurred to her as a reasonable explanation for presenting Snape with the rare powder - nobody would be able to misconstrue her motives. And what were her motives? She hardly knew herself, any more. No one need be told that for months she had been nurturing the hollow, wooden 'bean' like an embryo, engineering situations in her mind in which it might be appropriate to make a present of it to Snape, knowing that it would make him happy…not expecting anything in return.

"You've come to the right place," grinned Harry. "Can't think of many other labs open over Christmas - and with the services of a Potions expert thrown in for free… No flies on you, Hermione!"

Hermione had scored top marks with her tale about the scorpion. Her resourcefulness and skill had earned Snape's admiration: there had been no disguising the approval in his eyes. With the reference to 'testing', however, his expression soured.

"Yes, indeed. I shall take the steps necessary to authenticate the substance," he replied stiffly. "If you care to assist me, Miss Granger, you could observe the results for yourself. You too, Harry, might find it educational."

"Yeah, OK, why not?" Harry agreed cheerily. "It'll be like old times, eh, Hermione - you and me together again, brewing up potions…"

Hermione marvelled at the selectivity of his memory - their inimical NEWTs years conveniently forgotten. She eyed Snape as he poured another coffee and sat, tight-lipped, stirring the sugar crystals in moody silence, dissolving the sweetness in the black, bitter liquid.

Harry, sensing a shift in the emotional balance, stared from his father to Hermione and back again. The air festered with assumptions. Then Harry's face cleared, and cracked into a wide, worldly, intimating grin. Smacking his hand down onto the table, he leaned his chair back onto two legs, and exclaimed with a knowing chuckle:

"Oh, Merlin! Wait a minute! Don't tell me you two have finally got your act together? It's about bloody time! Talk about dark horses! Oh, don't mind me - I'll admit I thought the whole thing was gross at first, but I've had long enough to get used to the idea. Yeah - go for it!"

Hermione gaped at him in horror. _Should she AK herself now or later? Later - just as soon as she'd cursed Harry for all eternity with an endlessly repeating Crucio… How could he say that? Out loud? In front of Snape?_ By turns hot and cold and sick with mortification, Hermione prayed for the world to end, there and then. Too paralysed with shame to raise her eyes, she could see, nonetheless, Snape's hand cease its ruminative stirring and his grip tighten on the spoon until she feared it might snap.

He rose to his feet.

"If that is your idea of a joke, Harry, it is in extremely poor taste. Cheap schoolboy humour. I'll not stay to be mocked!"

The hurt in his voice was more than Hermione could bear.

"Severus!" she whispered. But Snape left the room without a backward glance.

**End of chapter. **

**Next chapter : HARRY : HERMIONE / HERMIONE : SNAPE.**

**The next one's the last one folks… Can't spin it out forever.**


	8. Harry : Hermione Hermione : Snape

**LOST PERSPECTIVE 5**

**READ MY MIND**

**By Bellegeste**

**A/N: I think Hermione comes over as a bit of a control freak here, but in canon she can be ruthless when she thinks she is right - think about when she had McGonagall confiscate the Firebolt (PoA)… She is sensitive up to a point, but has blind spots.**

**CHAPTER 8: HARRY:HERMIONE / HERMIONE:SNAPE**

The candles guttered as the kitchen door closed. Hermione and Harry exchanged grimaces.

"Sense of humour failure!" Harry quipped, though he too was shocked.

"Oh, for God's sake, **shut up**, Harry! What the hell did you have to go and say that for? Have you any idea how _embarrassing_ that was? It's not funny. You've upset him again. You just can't help yourself, can you? What were you thinking?"

"What was I supposed to think?" Harry retorted. "I get back home and find you here! He's invited you round for a cosy chat - just the two of you - and there you are, sitting in a huddle…"

"We weren't! We were talking about Africa!"

"Oh, come off it, Hermione! You can stop the innocent act with me. I'm not blind, you know. You were drooling over him all through dinner - don't pretend you weren't. And if anyone's upset him, it's you - giving him an amazing present like that. Nundu claw? You could buy your own bloody laboratory for what that stuff's worth! And then making out you only want it testing? He must have thought he was home and dry, and then…. That's downright mean. There's a word for women like you! Prick-teaser!"

"Harry, I'm not!" Hermione was appalled. _Had she been flirting with Snape? Had she been that blatant? _She knew she'd started to unbend a little, and she'd been flattered that he'd shown so much interest in the way she'd used the scorpion venom…

"I've never given him any reason to think… It's not like that any more. Harry, you haven't told him? You promised me you wouldn't say anything! He invited me here to see _you_, Harry. He said you wanted to talk to me. I got the feeling he was trying to get us together."

"Us? Together? What, you and me? That's crazy!" Harry rubbished the thought.

"Thanks a lot!"

"No, I didn't mean it like that. He's always saying you were a positive influence, and that we shouldn't let a childish quarrel get in the way of our friendship. But getting _us_ together? He simply wouldn't do that - "

"Well, it's obvious that's what he thinks. All those smutty comments over dinner - if anyone was flirting, it was you!"

"I was just mucking around. **You** know that."

"Yes, **I** know that, but does **he**? No wonder he thought it was some kind of sick joke! Oh, this is awful. What must he think of me? I can't face him. I'd better go. I'm sorry. You'll have to say goodbye for me. Oh, and thank Quig for the meal."

_Was she going to end up running away again? So much for taking an adult approach._

Harry was looking more and more bewildered.

"Don't go, Hermione. We need to sort this out. Look, I'm sorry. I really thought he must have said something. The two of you seemed so - I don't know - _on the same wavelength_. There seemed to be this kind of '_thing_' going on between you all through dinner. I didn't get it at first, and then I figured he must have finally told you…"

"Told me what?"

"Hermione! You're not saying you haven't noticed the way he _looks_ at you?"

"Looks? At me? Don't be silly."

"I'm not. For Merlin's sake, Hermione, he's _liked_ you for ages…"

"Oh, _liked_… That's me - good old, _likeable_ Hermione. Snape doesn't like me, Harry. He doesn't like anyone."

"No, not like that. I mean, _liked_."

At one time this would have been the answer to her prayers and yet now, as Harry spoke the words, she didn't trust them. She wasn't sure she even wanted to hear them. It wasn't possible.

"You've got it all wrong, Harry. He may think I'm clever and, well, _mentally stimulating_, but that's as far as it goes. He's not interested in me. Not in that way. Why would he be?" A little lapse into self-pity.

"_Why_? Hermione, he's a _man_, isn't he? Have you looked at yourself recently? You're quite… alright looking."

Hermione pulled on a stretchy smile. In his clumsy way Harry was only trying to be supportive.

"Thanks, Harry, but I know who I am, and how I look. And I'm OK with it. I may not be some kind of 'sex-pot', but if men can't see beyond - "

"Just shut up for a minute, will you? You're not hearing me. You know what your problem is? You intimidate them - us. You're too damned brainy. It scares the shit out of us. No wonder blokes are terrified to go out with you - unless they're like 'dahlink Victor', too thick to realise…"

"That's a rotten thing to say," she objected, flattered nonetheless by his back-handed compliments.

"No, I mean it, Hermione. Don't you see? Snape's probably the only man you'll ever meet who can handle you - er, intellectually, I mean. Oh heck…" Harry was beetroot red by now. Talking this way about his own father struck him as distasteful. "What? What's the matter? I thought that was what you wanted?"

"It was. It used to be. But things have changed, Harry. I was just a kid…"

"Is there someone else?"

"No."

"So you still _like_ him?" Harry would never figure out women.

"Yes, of course I do… but… Harry, just because you like someone, it doesn't mean you're queuing up to settle down and have their babies… You've already got us married off and living in domestic bliss in Hogsmeade… It's not that simple."

She wasn't sure that she had the stamina to get involved with Snape. Any relationship with him would be an emotional dragon-ride - he was so terribly touchy, so difficult. And she wasn't the same hot-headed, smitten teenager she'd been two years ago. He could still set those Billywigs buzzing in her stomach, but she had changed, her priorities had altered: she had her work now, her independence; she wasn't ready to play 'happy families'.

"I just wish I could have met him ten years from now – that's all."

"Need a Time-turner for that…"

"You know what I mean, Harry. There's so much I want to do before I get… _involved_, with anybody."

"But at school…"

"Oh, I know." She gave a giggle. "What can I say? Hormones! I've grown up a bit since then."

Harry was staring at Hermione as though it were he who had just met her for the first time. Something about her was different, and he wasn't sure he was happy with it. The dedication and energy she had at one time devoted to essay-writing had transferred itself to her new work. She never could do things by halves - everything always had to be so perfect. It was like the third year all over again when she had worked herself into the ground, doubling up on her lessons - and she _had_ used a Time-turner then! And now…

"You can do your job and still have a love life, Hermione. People do it all the time."

"Yes, but… don't you see, Harry? What I'm doing now is so worthwhile - I need to be able to give it everything I've got. It seems selfish, don't you think, to jeopardise that for the sake of a relationship? Rather self-indulgent? When there are bigger things at stake? I'm afraid relationships will have to take a bit of a back seat for the next few years."

"Are you trying to convince me or yourself? Do you have any idea how pretentious and calculating all that sounds?"

There was a hint of ruthlessness about her that previously he'd only glimpsed in passing - when she'd put the _Hiccobubblus_ on Ron, for instance, or the cool determination she had shown in 'obtaining' ingredients from Snape's store cupboard, or the time they had rescued Sirius and Buckbeak.

"What about studying tribal medicine? Your so-called research? It's all so much moonshine and pixie-dust! You were stringing him along!"

"No, I **do** want to do that. But not yet. I need more field experience…"

"Huh." Harry was angry - with her, and with himself. What did he think he was doing? Playing Devil's advocate? Why was he encouraging Hermione to have a relationship with his father? At one time the very thought had made him sick. He raked his hair back, out of his eyes, and for a second she saw the jagged line of his scar, pale under the tan. Neither of them spoke. Hermione prodded the grounds in the bottom of her coffee cup, not meeting his eye. If she manoeuvred them into something resembling the map of Africa perhaps she could convince him that her job was destined by fate…

"This is all hypothetical anyway, Harry. It doesn't really matter what I feel. It's you he's mad at. How could you say that?" Hermione knew she was blushing with embarrassment all over again. "Go and find him, and apologise."

"**You** go and find him. He's upset with me, but it's you he wants."

"Oh, not that again, Harry. We've been through this." If this emotional piggy-in-the-middle were an example of what it would be like to be involved in Harry's family, then she was well out of it.

"Hermione, just listen to me. According to Draco…"

"Draco! Where does _he_ come into all this? It's got nothing to do with Draco." She interrupted sharply.

"No, but Snape told him - "

"Why was he discussing **me** with Malfoy? Oh, never mind. Why do you men ever do anything? What did he say?"

"I don't know exactly, but according to Draco, the reason Snape left Hogwarts was because - "

" - he was avoiding me!" The idea horrified and delighted her.

"He didn't want to bring the school into disrepute. Sooner or later there would have been a major scandal. You can't keep that sort of thing quiet for long. And he - you know, because of all the Death Eater stuff and the business with my mother and everything - he doesn't take this kind of thing lightly…"

Each new revelation was a precious ingredient added to the potion - and the result was intoxicating. She let it bubble gloriously in her veins until the fizzing stopped, the liquid flattened.

"But that was two years ago. He was a mess then, Harry. I don't think he knew what he was doing. Maybe he did _like_ me for a while… But it wasn't really _me_ he wanted - it was _someone_ - it could have been anyone - it could have been _you_, if you'd made more of an effort - _someone to be nice to him…_"

"Try being nice to a Lionfish…" Harry grumbled. He had tried, hadn't he? Hermione didn't know what she was talking about.

"It wouldn't have taken much, you know," she scolded him, her brown eyes full of reproach.

"I know." Harry hung his head.

An alternate version of the last two years scrolled into their minds – a version with less drama, more understanding – but did this one have a happy ending? They read the past in silence. Hermione was the first to tear her eyes away.

"But why didn't he just _talk _to **me**?" she wailed.

"Him? Talk? That'll be the day! _What_ would you have done?" asked Harry. "And what are you going to do now?"

_What am I going to do? What am I going to do?_

"_Reculer pour mieux sauter_," she murmured to herself, not thinking he'd hear.

Harry shot her a pained look.

"Oh, Merlin! He's not got you at it too," he moaned.

"At what?"

"Quoting stuff in French. Snape does that. It bugs me to death. What's it mean anyway?"

"Nothing." She tried to laugh it off. "I don't know why I said it really. It's from a Muggle book I was reading at my parents' house. Lawrence(1). The two main characters are talking about - well, about marriage, actually, as an experience – and Ursula says something like, 'It's more likely to be the _end_ of experience'… Quite a scary thought, isn't it?"Hermione was avoiding the immediate issue.

But Harry was more scared by the thought of long winter evenings with Hermione and Snape exchanging erudite French allusions, while he felt totally excluded… She was supposed to be so intelligent, and yet she couldn't grasp the simple truth that she and Snape were made for each other…

"Forget the work for a minute. What does your _instinct_ tell you, Hermione? You must have some idea."

Hermione had never set much store by instinct. That was more Luna's territory. Anyway, her instincts here were no help at all; they were all over the place. They prophesied 'joy and pain', 'success and catastrophe' - Sibyll Trelawney could have done a better job with a soggy tea-bag. Harry had already singled-out the one gut feeling she felt she could trust: that she and Snape were _like-minded_. Would that be enough? It could be the basis for a friendship. They'd soon discover whether or not they were compatible. Realistically, she could see more mileage in friendship than in a tempestuous, passionate, possibly glorious, but inevitably short-lived affair. _Could she settle for that_?

"Are you going to translate, or not?" Getting no answer regarding instincts, Harry returned to her quotation.

"Oh, that… It just means 'Take a step back in order to get a better jump'. I told you it was silly. Don't know what made me say it."

"Is that what you're doing?" Harry asked.

_Bother Harry! She underestimated him, sometimes._

"Me? No. I don't know. Maybe…"

"But Hermione, he'll be gutted."

"You think? No, no he won't. Not if I explain - he'll understand. _Disappointed_ maybe, but… It's better this way, Harry, in the long run - it really is. Or will be. Better."

"Are you sure?"

"No."

X X X

She found him exactly where Harry had said he would be - half way up a small, grassy hillside, where the ground levelled off into an uneven plateau, before dropping away steeply on the far side to the blackness of a deep valley. Somewhere down there, she knew, was Snape Manor, shrouded in the night. It was a miracle she had found the place at all, in the dark, but some sixth sense had guided her on, an animal instinct drawing her to his presence.

As she hurried after him into the unknown, Hermione had been running through the first draft of the coming scene, even though she knew it was a futile exercise. Her pre-rehearsed speeches never worked - the other characters never responded the way they were supposed to. They so often confused the script with lines of their own!

She was going to tell Snape calmly, with complete candour, that Harry was a friend, nothing more. Just a friend. That was the easy part. And then she'd tell him - what? That she loved him? That she used to _think_ she loved him but now she wasn't sure how she felt? That she liked him, but didn't want to rush things? That she was going back to Africa next week? That she was prepared to give up her job and work as his research assistant in the potions lab? That she was fond of him but they'd have to see how things panned out…? That his mere handshake ignited her entire nervous system? That friendship was all she could offer or accept? It was all so contradictory. She was into her nth rewrite on the next couple of pages of dialogue. She couldn't imagine how she would ever begin to tell Snape how she felt. Hermione normally prided herself on being forthright, and she despised the very word 'coy', but the complexity of what she was about to say reduced her to tongue-tied incoherence.

Gashes of inky infinity had rent the afternoon's low, snow-cloud curtain; stripes of moonlight silvered the hillside. Spot-lit for a second, bushes, trees and looming shapes appeared, then slipped noiselessly away like zebra into the night.

'I love him; I love him not'… she was plucking emotional petals as she walked, dropping them one by one, leaving the path behind her strewn with pearly white ovals of indecision.

She didn't see him at first, he was standing so still, a pillar of solitude, chiselled in stone. In the frosty, December air his arms were tightly folded over his chest, against the cold, against the world, hands thrust into his armpits. Purposefully, she climbed the last remaining steps to his side.

He made no move to acknowledge her arrival, though he must have known she was there. The silence between them stretched beyond acceptable through awkward to inexcusable, and finally came full circle back to neutral. It was time to speak up.

"Harry and I…" she began gently, "Harry's just - "

But he cut in sharply:

"Harry is tactless, insensitive and indiscreet!"

"No, Sir, you don't understand - what Harry said just now… He didn't mean - "

"His implication was clear and invidious!"

"Not _invidious_, surely? **_I_** wasn't offended." Hermione hoped Snape might follow up the hint, but he chose a negative interpretation.

"Then you should have been. Harry's insinuations were both crude and insulting. You were embarrassed on my account. He should never have put you in that position. To imply that you and I …"

The unspoken implication condensed on his breath in the night air. He couldn't bring himself to say the words.

_Was the idea so unthinkable? Why was he deliberately distancing himself from her? Had he spent so long in denial of his feelings that he had started to believe his own propaganda - that any kind of relationship between them was undesirable and inappropriate? Was this some kind of noble self-sacrifice?_

Hermione sighed and tried again.

"Harry and I are just friends." It sounded trite, like an excuse. She didn't blame him for not believing her. He remained proudly aloof, stubborn, wounded but determinedly alone.

"Indeed? Then, Miss Granger, you should go back. Go back to your _friend_."

_He wasn't going to listen. Why wouldn't he listen? _Hermione didn't know how she was going to get through to him. This was neither the time nor the place for honour or ethics or self-denial. She wasn't sure exactly where she wanted to be with this man, but it was **not** on a freezing cold hillside, in the dark, arguing…

Hermione came to a decision. There was only one way she could think of to demolish, once and for all, this barrier of misunderstanding. Emboldened by Harry's revelations, she moved closer to him.

"Severus, look at me."

He tensed at the use of his name, but continued to stare forcedly ahead, scowling, his lips compressed into a single, thin, angry line. She planted herself squarely in front of him, and took him firmly by the shoulders; it was impossible for him to ignore her now.

"Severus," she said, "Please, for Merlin's sake, _look_ at me. Look into my eyes and **_read my mind_**."

**END OF STORY**

**I thought I should stop here. **

**It was becoming enough of a soap-opera already!**

**Thank you so much to everyone who has read and reviewed.**

**PLEASE NOTE: If any of you expect Lost Perspective 6 (DECK THE HALLS) to be the sequel to LP5, it isn't. **

**When I completed this one I felt I had taken this thread of the Snape:Harry:Hermione relationship about as far as I wanted to. But I didn't want to let go of the characters. So, I went back to the end of LP3 (REPERCUSSIONS) and wrote LP6 as an alternative sequel to that (one in which Hermione may be sympathetic towards Snape, but there is no actual romance involved.) **

**It's a Hermione:Neville:Luna:Snape:Draco:Harry story…**

1 D.H. Lawrence. 'Women in Love'.


	9. Postscript : An optional ending

**LOST PERSPECTIVE 5**

**READ MY MIND**

**By Bellegeste**

**Author's Note: **

**Sorry if you got chapter 8 twice. That's technology for you!**

**This is an OPTIONAL ending. OK, I know I said chapter 8 was the final chapter. However, a few of you (and you know who you are - thank you) have taken the trouble to e-mail me and accuse me of wimping out of writing a proper ending. Fair enough.**

**So, if you'd rather have your own ideas about what happens to Hermione and Snape, don't read this chapter. If you're looking for something approaching 'closure', then read on!**

**Chapter 9: POSTSCRIPT**

Slowly Snape raised his head. His gaze rested on the pale, earnest face staring up at him, but he avoided the eyes - the intense, imploring eyes. He was shocked - by the passion in her voice, by the firmness of her grip on his shoulders, by the familiarity with which she breathed his name, by the words and all they implied: the intimacy of the invitation. He couldn't have been more shocked if she had stripped naked and offered herself to him there, on the grass…

But she was Muggle-born - she couldn't realise how _Legilimens_ could probe the deepest 'Closetland' of her being. Naïve child - she probably thought it was like one of those crude, Muggle lie-detecting devices: a pencil trace of the peaks and troughs of her finer feeling. She was standing there like some sacrificial virgin, exposing a white, softly pulsing throat to the fangs of a vampire… Didn't she understand that _with his mind_, if he so chose, he could invade her secret soul, that he could lay her bare, penetrate her innermost thoughts? That he would _know_ her utterly? Was she prepared for that?

"Do it," she whispered.

He felt his blood quicken.

With an abrupt, angry shrug he broke away from her arms, away from temptation, and stepped back.

"Don't be absurd!" he snarled. "What are you trying to do - get me arrested? Has Harry put you up to this? Is it all part of his little joke? Unauthorised _Legilimens_? That's a chargeable offence. Whatever game you're playing, I want no part of it. If nothing more, Miss Granger, I expected _respect_ from you."

He had spoken harshly, intentionally so, to discourage her. If the idea of being the subject of some obscure in-joke between this girl and his son was an insult, the thought that she might actually be sincere was even more alarming. Or was this an ingenuous, extravagant, Gryffindor gesture, impetuous and exaggerated? 'See how honest I am! I have nothing to hide!' Was he reading too much into it? Looking for a darker motivation, when all there was to find was simple generosity? How was he to interpret her request? There was a great deal at stake here. He was loath to fall for a ruse. What if he had misread the signals…?

Snape looked at Hermione more searchingly. She had always been outspoken, but never brazen, not immodest. This was something different - unwise, misguided, but in all probability genuine.

When he had noticed her trudging up the hillside, he had assumed that somewhere in her wake, Harry would be toiling behind her, that they had come together to cajole him into forgiveness, and he, Snape, had resolved to be intractable. Now he reconsidered. Harry had sent her to do his grovelling for him; at least _she_ had the decency to make the effort. He could be civil.

"Go back to the house, Miss Granger."

She stood planted before him, unwavering. But for the wind scraping roughly at her hair, and her occasional involuntary shiver in the icy night air, she didn't move a muscle. She stared back at him, boldly assertive.

"I'm not your student now - you can't just dismiss me! And if you think I've followed you all this way - traipsed right up here in the dark, through this bug-infested jungle… through this…" she hunted for the word, "…this lethal _zoo_ you call a garden…" She stopped to pluck off a large _Brazilian Huntsman_ spider which had crawled up as far as her lapel, dropping it to the ground with a slight shudder. No shrieking hysterics, he noted. She shook out her hand with a little frown, raised her middle finger to her lips, sucked it quickly.

"Have you been bitten?" Snape moved anxiously towards her. He didn't have any antidotes with him. The undertone of urgency in his voice was unmistakeable. Hermione grinned.

"Just a nip. They always try it on, don't they? I hate those 'Hunters'. It's alright - I've done the Anti-Biting Charm. I've been living in the bush for five months, don't forget - it's almost second nature now, whenever I go outside."

_Was she laughing at him?_

"It's just as well. It would have been inconvenient for me to carry you all the way back." He hardly knew what he was saying; the thought of losing her to an untimely drop of venom had set adrenalin racing in his veins.

"So you're not my Willoughby1, then?"

"Your _what_?"

_Was she teasing him?_

"Never mind. What was I saying? Oh yes - if you think I've come up here just for you to lecture me about _respect_… **Respect**? If I don't respect you then I don't know who does. You've no idea how many times I stuck up for you at school when the rest of the class was ripping you - times when you weren't exactly setting a shining example as far as 'respect' goes… Isn't that respect? And what about when I tried to help Harry - when he first found out about - you know…? Would I have done that, if I didn't respect you? Even that time when you nearly wrecked everything, when we'd caught Peter Pettigrew - that time with Sirius - I knew you were wrong, but I still respected you. I tried to explain to you…"

"As I recall, Miss Granger, you shot me with _Expelliarmus_ and then left me unconscious in the grounds with a ravening werewolf on the loose," he retorted dryly. "Our definition of 'respect' would seem to differ."

"Alright then. Why did I ask Professor Dumbledore for a transfer to Beauxbatons?" she demanded, feisty in her self-defence.

"When?" Snape was unaware of this; Dumbledore had never mentioned it. Hermione's voice dropped and softened.

"In Year six - _my_ Year six - it was just after… after Eamon bit you… But then you went and resigned!"

The subject of 'respect' had been subbed, and an altogether more delicate issue was brought into play.

"But you remained at Hogwarts," Snape said, steadying himself against an incontrovertible fact, while subjecting the events of the past two years to a dizzying reappraisal.

"There was no point in my leaving, once you had resigned," Hermione admitted. That was the closest she had ever come to telling him how she felt. Snape narrowed his eyes, trying to read her expression more clearly in the moonlight. Was she saying that her studious indifference had been a pretence? …her intrepid independence a defence? …that what he'd taken for abhorrence, had been masking the pain of a love-sick girl with a broken heart?

He looked at her – small, chilled and windswept, but with fiery dignity intact, and he felt a powerful urge to envelop her in the warm folds of his cloak and draw her to him, to crush her against his chest and hold her there for ever.

"It's just as well I did resign, judging from this evening's intemperate outburst," he said, deliberately cruel, shunning the impulse towards sentimentality. No point in raking up the past, however beguiling.

"Severus, why? _Why_ are you doing this?" she exclaimed. "People always say you're heartless, but…"

"Believe it!" he snapped.

"No, I don't believe it! I won't! People_ say_ a lot of things. People _say_ you're still in league with Voldemort, and that you've been double-crossing Professor Dumbledore all these years - do I believe that? No, of course I don't. Harry used to _say_ that you were trying to poison Remus! Do you think I believed him? There are all sorts of horrible rumours about you - they _say_ you murdered both your parents and buried them inside Snape Manor, which is why you've kept it locked up ever since… They_ say_ you used to try out dangerous new potions on your house elf, and it's left him brutally maimed and disfigured! People will say anything! Harry still says you'd rather he'd never found out you were his father - and I don't believe that for one minute! And, if **you** try to say that you don't care about me… I won't believe you either!"

How was it that suddenly _he_ was under scrutiny? Wasn't he supposed to be investigating _her_ thoughts? There was a woman's logic at work here, and it unnerved him. What should he say to her? 'You know I care'? Evidently she knew it already. Dragon's blood! It hadn't taken long for young Malfoy to piece the clues together; Harry had eventually figured it out. Did _everybody_ know? Did he have to say it _out loud_?

"Melodrama doesn't suit you," he snubbed her coolly, untruthfully. Roused to anger, flushed and impassioned, she was more than attractive. "Tell me this, Miss Granger, why should I use _Legilimens_? What is suddenly so _ineffable_ that you can't simply say it? You were articulate enough when you were describing the plight of the desert nomads… Why this belated reticence? It's a pity you did not display a similar restraint at dinner instead of engaging in that lewd _badinage_…"

"I don't love the Tuaregs - or Harry," she muttered, letting the wind snatch the comment and toss it into the night before Snape could catch it. Then she faced him. "Do you have to have a reason? Isn't the fact that I'm asking you reason enough? Would I do this without a reason? It's… it's the only way I can get you to listen to me - you only ever hear what you want… But this way… Just do it. See as much as you want. I _want _you to understand. I trust you."

"Trust me? You shouldn't. If there's one thing I'd hoped you'd learned from my classes it is that nothing should be taken on trust. How can you trust me?" _When he barely trusted himself_. "Do you know how Harry - your _friend_, Harry - was conceived?" The entire wizarding world knew. He was a marked man. He forced the brutal facts like a wedge between them.

"I know! And I DON'T CARE! You can't spend your whole life atoning for one mistake!"

She would care, he thought bitterly, if she had been the one pushed up against a wall with his arm across her throat… She'd hate and despise him. Like Lily had. But Lily had forgiven him. Women were, he reflected, inconsistent and inexplicably resilient. _You foolish child - you wouldn't trust me if you knew what I was thinking now, at this minute_.

"Read my mind, Severus," she repeated. She took his hand in her own cold, trembling fingers. A surge of hope coursed through him; he was surprised at how much, how very much he wanted her to kiss his hand; he wanted to feel the warmth of her breath on his skin. But she held it with a kind of reverential awe, like some grail, as though, having accomplished her quest she was scared to sully the icon. Yet she seemed to be drawing strength from that meagre contact, firming a resolve, composing herself.

"I'm old enough to take responsibility for this decision," she said evenly. "And to live with the consequences. Don't think that you are in any way taking advantage of me. I want this. I am asking you to do it. I'm not being whimsical, and I'm not upset or hysterical."

It was a while since he had performed _Legilimens_ on anyone other than Harry - and even that was a couple of years ago now. It was a standard interrogation tactic - the key lay in the unexpected attack, before the subject had a chance to block his thoughts or focus on diversionary memories. He couldn't remember an occasion when he had not cracked into a mind by force; he had never worked on a willing volunteer.

"Very well." He began to stride down the hillside, pulling her along with him. She scrambled behind him, apprehensive now, vulnerable, only too conscious of his strength, feeling that she had perhaps been complacent in her trust.

"W- where are we going?" she stammered.

"Out of the wind. It's too cold up there on the plateau. I can't concentrate if you're shivering. We could return to the cottage."

"No!" If they went back inside, she'd never have the nerve to go through with it. Whatever passed between them out here, in the anonymity of the night, would be unobserved, secret and… deniable.

He dragged her towards the lake where a knot of hazel bushes had grown together, thickly intertwined, their bent stems folded into one another, pleached2 into a natural windbreak.

"Here. If you're sure. If you insist." Why should he refuse? For honour's sake? He was no longer her tutor. He was not her guardian - moral or mental. He was under no obligation to her whatsoever. If she were determined, he would go through with it. He couldn't pretend he wasn't curious. He could skim the last few hours, get to grips with that ridiculous argument at dinner time, and leave it at that.

"Very well. Miss Granger - look at me. Open your eyes. Blink..."

The tears affected him strangely. He watched two glistening drops squeeze from her eyelids, and how she smeared them away angrily with the flat of her hand. Mind magic itself was straightforward enough; the fear lay in the acceptance and surrender, the complicity, the unequivocal trust… He was afraid too.

He would make it as clinical a proceeding as possible.

"One, two, three… _Legilimens!_"

Snape was standing on the threshold of her consciousness. It would be a filing cabinet of organised thoughts, an efficiently catalogued library of her experiences, boxed and labelled. He had ransacked tidy minds like that in the past. He would step into a well-dusted antechamber of accumulated information, as disciplined as one of those Dutch Muggle paintings – a masterpiece of formality, order and perfect perspective.

He moved forwards. And there they were, as he had anticipated, a neat stack of detailed memories laid out for his perusal, sensibly positioned and displayed. Full marks for presentation, Miss Granger. As he drew closer, however, he could tell that the complex piles formed a structure less stable than it at first appeared. The logical arrangement was as fragile and finely balanced as a house of cards and, as he discovered, just as precarious. He'd barely turned his attention to the most recent recollections when the whole delicate construction wobbled.

Beside him he heard Hermione gasp, aware of his presence amongst her thoughts - nothing can ever adequately prepare you for the first experience of mind-magic. But it was too late for regrets.

A moment of doubt, and the brave façade of her composure collapsed and came crashing down, images tipped and emptied in a muddled heap, ideas fluttering randomly to the floor. The shuffled clippings of her life - out-takes, deleted scenes, torn fragments - lay scattered about his feet like the elements of a living album. Precious dreams, lovingly trimmed, strewn side by side with ragged scraps of existence, layer upon layer, overlapping, face-up, face-down…

Kneeling, Snape began to sift through the pictures: there were faces he recognised and strangers; familiar settings and distant, unknown locations; students, staff, Hogwarts, Hogsmeade, Diagon Alley, a house in a leafy suburb, a goats' hair tent… snow and sand; bleak Highland crags and the rocky infinity of barren desert…

There was Granger herself, her NEWTs certificate in hand - Snape sensed a glow of success, achievement, elation and… vindication? Then a frisson, a chill - was it terror? He was looking at images of an enraged troll, the reflection of a monstrous reptile, a purple spell searing from a Death Eater's wand… She had suffered, more than he realised. Distressed, he pushed those aside, rifling through to find something more recent. There she was again, in tribal robes this time, a gaggle of half-naked, unwashed native children grinning shyly up at her; Granger again, addressing a delegation of elders, confidently, persuasively; Granger yet again, alone by the ashes of a dying campfire, hugging her knees, rocking, and crying softly in the dark…

A pack of memories. One by one Snape turned over the revealing cards. It was like a game of Exploding Snap. Turn, turn, turn…Snap! Turn, turn…Snap! Turn…Snap! Snap! …Snape! He touched them tentatively now, not knowing when the next shock would come, awaiting an explosion. Amongst the images one card turned up with uncanny regularity. Snap! Snape!... A recurring motif: himself.

His own face in close-up or in long shot; his features: his nose, an eyebrow… he identified his own hand writing in red ink… It was him there at High Table with Dumbledore; he was there in the Dungeon correcting Longbottom (_belittling? No, he wouldn't say he belittled Longbottom_), advising Harry (_undermining? Is that how she saw it? Was that how Harry saw it?),_ admonishing Granger herself (_offensively rude, sarcastic and hurtful_? _Surely not!)…_ He was at the staffroom door, offering to fetch Flitwick… (_When was that? Why would she remember such a trifling incident?_)He was on a broomstick, refereeing Quidditch; now he was a spectator… his robes were on fire… (_how did she know about that?_) He was duelling with Lockhart… Lockhart? There was a batch of pictures of him. Hmm. Back to Snape… There he was, slammed against the shack wall, a trail of blood marking his downward collapse to unconsciousness… now he was in the hospital wing, unbuttoning his cuff, rolling up his sleeve… there he was again, being inscrutably unhelpful in Umbridge's study…

Profoundly uncomfortable yet fascinated, Snape succumbed to the addictive lure of Hermione's thoughts. He caught the prevailing mood of wariness, unease and a grudging respect, borne of fear. _Is this what she had wanted him to see? That she had maintained a critical, mental dossier of his activities at Hogwarts?_

…he was holding a squirming Dranda cub at arms' length… he was in the Potions lab, covered in ash and potion, sneezing; still in the lab, he was talking to Harry and then striding angrily towards Granger, his eyes smarting… He was lying down - he looked sick - his arm was bandaged… Compared with the earlier images, the atmosphere had softened; where was the judgemental antagonism? Was that sympathy? Empathy? Snape scrutinised the memory. His arm was bandaged… …and someone - Hermione - was gently cradling him, holding him, he had his head on her shoulder…? _He knew he'd been delirious that day, but that wasn't how **he** remembered it_…

Now he was in a room he didn't recognise - and he was standing behind Granger as she put the finishing touches to an essay… he was bending down, leaning close over her shoulder, pointing out something in the text, his hair was brushing her cheek… _But he had never set foot in the Gryffindor Common Room!_

Almost dreading what he might see, Snape glanced at the next few thoughts, picked up at random. They were very recent - from dinner time that evening; he remembered the conversation: the Nundu claw, the dragons… the picture seemed to be zooming in to a close-up, focussing on his mouth, his lips… Now there were only two people: Hermione was discussing him with Harry…

Snap!

"Hermione, I can't do this!" Snape cried, wrenching himself away. Fending off the subjective onslaught of her imagination, he turned to the darkness, unwilling to show her his face.

She nodded, made a tiny gulping noise, unable to speak. Tears were streaming down her cheeks unchecked.

Snape had seen enough; he understood more than enough.

In that moment he felt simultaneously blessed and bereft.

Gun-metal grey, polished by the occasional moonlight, the lake was still, its sheen pitted with the round, target-shaped ripples of unseen, sub-aquatic snipers, picking off surface swimmers. Staring out over the dark waters, Snape saw only love and loss.

After a while Hermione joined him. They stood, not touching, and together they contemplated the vast, un-travelled future.

"Well?" she asked eventually.

What did she want from him? Nothing messy, he understood that well enough - no emotional scenes, no demands, no stipulations; and she would make none. She didn't want his advice - she had already made up her mind. She had been ridge-walking on that decision for a while, the slightest pressure might have tipped her towards him, but now she was making her own descent and, it seemed, heading away.

What she needed was his approval, his reassurance that she had made the _right_ decision. She needed him to ratify it and be OK. He understood, and he would do what she wanted. He respected her independence. He didn't have to like it.

"I have never," he commented heroically, "been in your Common Room. Nor have I ridden a pack-horse in Bandiagara…"

She smiled sadly.

"Yes, you have. I'm afraid you have. You've been with me everywhere," she said. "For two years."

"And now you're going back to Africa." He made himself say it calmly. It was a verbal agreement; her unconditional manumission. She needed the freedom to explore, to experiment and experience the world, unfettered. She was too young to be shackled by commitment.

_By wizard standards they were both still young…_

_**X X X**_

_**And I think that really is the end of this story!**_

_**Which ending do you prefer?**_

1 Willoughby. In Austen's _Sense and Sensibility_, Willoughby carries the injured Marianne to safety.

2 Pleached – hedge-laying term denoting the inter-weaving of branches.


End file.
